Eric Frank Russell
Encyclopedia
Eric Frank Russell was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 best known for his science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novels and short stories. Much of his work was first published in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, in John W. Campbell
John W. Campbell
John Wood Campbell, Jr. was an influential figure in American science fiction. As editor of Astounding Science Fiction , from late 1937 until his death, he is generally credited with shaping the so-called Golden Age of Science Fiction.Isaac Asimov called Campbell "the most powerful force in...

's Astounding Science Fiction and other pulp magazine
Pulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...

s. Russell also wrote horror fiction
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...

 for Weird Tales
Weird Tales
Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre....

, and non-fiction articles on Fortean
Charles Fort
Charles Hoy Fort was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. Today, the terms Fortean and Forteana are used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold well and are still in print today.-Biography:Charles Hoy Fort was born in 1874 in Albany, New York, of Dutch...

 topics. A few of his stories were published under pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

s, of which "Duncan H. Munro" was used most often.

Biography

Russell was born in 1905 near Sandhurst in Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...

, where his father was an instructor at the Royal Military Academy
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst , commonly known simply as Sandhurst, is a British Army officer initial training centre located in Sandhurst, Berkshire, England...

. Russell became a fan of science fiction, and in 1934 while living near Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

 he saw a letter in Amazing Stories
Amazing Stories
Amazing Stories was an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction...

 written by Leslie J. Johnson, another reader from the same area. Russell met up with Johnson, who encouraged him to embark on a writing career. Together, the two men wrote the novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...

 "Seeker of Tomorrow" which was published in Astounding in July 1937. Both Russell and Johnson became members of the British Interplanetary Society
British Interplanetary Society
The British Interplanetary Society founded in 1933 by Philip E. Cleator, is the oldest space advocacy organisation in the world whose aim is exclusively to support and promote astronautics and space exploration.-Structure:...

.

Russell's first novel was Sinister Barrier, published in the first issue of Astoundings short-lived sister magazine Unknown
Unknown (magazine)
Unknown was an American pulp fantasy fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1943 by Street & Smith, and edited by John W. Campbell. Unknown was a companion to Street & Smith's science fiction pulp, Astounding Science Fiction, which was also edited by Campbell at the time; many authors and...

 (March 1939). This is an explicitly Fortean tale based (as Russell explains in the novel's foreword) on Charles Fort
Charles Fort
Charles Hoy Fort was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. Today, the terms Fortean and Forteana are used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold well and are still in print today.-Biography:Charles Hoy Fort was born in 1874 in Albany, New York, of Dutch...

's famous speculation "I think we're property". An often-repeated legend has it that Campbell, on receiving the manuscript for Sinister Barrier, created Unknown
Unknown (magazine)
Unknown was an American pulp fantasy fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1943 by Street & Smith, and edited by John W. Campbell. Unknown was a companion to Street & Smith's science fiction pulp, Astounding Science Fiction, which was also edited by Campbell at the time; many authors and...

 primarily as a vehicle for the short novel. There is no real evidence for this, in spite of a statement to that effect in the first volume of Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...

's autobiography, In Memory Yet Green.

His second novel, Dreadful Sanctuary (serialized in Astounding during 1948) is an early example of conspiracy fiction
Conspiracy fiction
The conspiracy thriller is a subgenre of thriller fiction. The protagonists of conspiracy thrillers are often journalists or amateur investigators who find themselves pulling on a small thread which unravels a vast conspiracy that ultimately goes "all the way to the top"...

, in which a paranoid
Paranoia
Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...

 delusion
Delusion
A delusion is a false belief held with absolute conviction despite superior evidence. Unlike hallucinations, delusions are always pathological...

 of global proportions is perpetuated by a small but powerful secret society
Secret society
A secret society is a club or organization whose activities and inner functioning are concealed from non-members. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla insurgencies, which hide their...

.

There are two different and mutually incompatible accounts of Russell's military service during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. The official, well-documented version is that he served with the Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

, with whom he saw active service in Europe as a member of a Mobile Signals Unit. However, in the introduction to the 1986 Del Rey Books
Del Rey Books
Del Rey Books is a branch of Ballantine Books, which is owned by Random House and, in turn since 1998, by Bertelsmann AG. It is a separate imprint established in 1977 under the editorship of author Lester del Rey and his wife Judy-Lynn del Rey. It specializes in science fiction and fantasy...

 edition of Russell's novel Wasp, Jack L. Chalker
Jack L. Chalker
Jack Laurence Chalker was an American science fiction author. Chalker was also a Baltimore City Schools history teacher in Maryland for 12 years, retiring in 1978 to write full-time...

 states that Russell was too old for active service, and instead worked for Military Intelligence in London, where he "spent the war dreaming up nasty tricks to play against the Germans and Japanese", including Operation Mincemeat
Operation Mincemeat
Operation Mincemeat was a successful British deception plan during World War II. As part of the widespread deception plan Operation Barclay to cover the intended invasion of Italy from North Africa, Mincemeat helped to convince the German high command that the Allies planned to invade Greece and...

. Russell's biographer John L. Ingham states however that "there is nothing, absolutely nothing, in his R.A.F. Record to show that he was anything more than a wireless mechanic and radio operator".

Russell took up writing full-time in the late 1940s. He became an active member of British science fiction fandom
Science fiction fandom
Science fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community or "fandom" of people actively interested in science fiction and fantasy and in contact with one another based upon that interest...

 and the British representative of the Fortean Society
Fortean Society
The Fortean Society was started in the United States in 1931 during a meeting held in the New York flat of Charles Hoy Fort in order to promote the ideas of American writer Charles Fort. The Fortean Society was primarily based in New York City. Its first president was Theodore Dreiser, an old...

. He won the first Hugo Award for Best Short Story
Hugo Award for Best Short Story
The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...

 in 1955 for his humorous short story "Allamagoosa
Allamagoosa
"Allamagoosa" is science fiction short story by English author Eric Frank Russell originally published in the May 1955 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and collected in The Best Of Eric Frank Russell and Major Ingredients: The Selected Short Stories of Eric Frank Russell...

".

Russell was awarded a posthumous Prometheus Hall of Fame
Prometheus Award
The Prometheus Award is an award for libertarian science fiction novels given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society, which also publishes a quarterly journal Prometheus. L. Neil Smith established the award in 1979, but it was not awarded regularly until the newly founded Libertarian Futurist...

 award in 1985 for his novel The Great Explosion
The Great Explosion
The Great Explosion is a satirical science fiction novel by Eric Frank Russell, first published in 1962. The story is divided into three sections...

, and in 2000 he was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

Into Your Tent, a thorough and detailed biography of Russell by John L. Ingham, was published in 2010 by Plantech (UK).

Writings

Russell's full-length fiction includes the following:
  • Sinister Barrier
    Sinister Barrier
    Sinister Barrier is an English language science fiction novel by author Eric Frank Russell. The novel originally appeared in the magazine Unknown in 1939, the first novel to appear in its pages. It was first published in book form in 1943 by The World's Work, Ltd. Russell revised and expanded the...

     (1939)
  • Dreadful Sanctuary
    Dreadful Sanctuary
    Dreadful Sanctuary is a science fiction novel by author Eric Frank Russell. It was first published in book form in 1951 by Fantasy Press in an edition of 2,975 copies. The novel was originally serialized in the magazine Astounding beginning in 1948...

     (1948)
  • Sentinels from Space (1953), based on the earlier magazine story The Star Watchers (1951)
  • Three to Conquer (1956), based on the earlier magazine serial Call Him Dead (1955)
  • Men, Martians and Machines
    Men, Martians and Machines
    Men, Martians and Machines is a collection of science-fiction short stories by the British writer Eric Frank Russell. It was first published in 1955.-Contents:...

     (1955), containing four related novellas
  • Wasp
    Wasp (novel)
    Wasp is a 1957 science fiction novel by English author Eric Frank Russell. Terry Pratchett stated that he "can't imagine a funnier terrorists' handbook." Wasp is generally considered Russell's best novel.The title of Wasp comes from the idea that the main character's actions and central purpose...

     (1958)
  • Next of Kin
    Next of Kin (novel)
    Next of Kin, also known as The Space Willies, is a science fiction comic novel by Eric Frank Russell. It is the story of a military misfit who successfully conducts a one-man psychological warfare operation against an alien race and its allies, with whom humans and allied races are at war. It was...

     (1959), published earlier as The Space Willies (1958)
  • The Great Explosion
    The Great Explosion
    The Great Explosion is a satirical science fiction novel by Eric Frank Russell, first published in 1962. The story is divided into three sections...

     (1962)
  • With a Strange Device (1964), also published as The Mindwarpers.


Russell also wrote a large number of shorter works, many of which have been reprinted in collections such as Deep Space
Deep Space (collection)
Deep Space is a collection of science-fiction short stories by the British writer Eric Frank Russell. It was first published by Fantasy Press in 1954 in an edition of 2,257 copies...

 (1954), Six Worlds Yonder (1958), Far Stars (1961), Dark Tides (1962) and Somewhere a Voice (1965). His short story "Allamagoosa
Allamagoosa
"Allamagoosa" is science fiction short story by English author Eric Frank Russell originally published in the May 1955 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and collected in The Best Of Eric Frank Russell and Major Ingredients: The Selected Short Stories of Eric Frank Russell...

" (1955), which was essentially a science-fictional retelling of a traditional tall story called "The Shovewood", won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story.

Russell wrote numerous non-fiction essays on Fortean themes, some of which were collected in a compendium of Forteana entitled Great World Mysteries (1957). His second non-fiction book was The Rabble Rousers (1963), a sardonic look at human folly including the Dreyfus affair
Dreyfus Affair
The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent...

 and the Florida land boom. He also wrote Lern Yerself Scouse: The ABZ of Scouse (1966) under the pseudonym "Linacre Lane".

Two omnibus collections of Russell's science fiction are available from NESFA Press
NESFA Press
NESFA Press is the publishing arm of the New England Science Fiction Association, Inc. The NESFA Press primarily produces three types of books:...

: Major Ingredients (2000), containing 30 of his short stories, and Entities (2001) containing five novels. John Pelan
John Pelan
John C. Pelan is an American author, editor and publisher in the small press science-fiction, weird and horror fiction genres.He first founded Axolotl Press in 1986 and published several volumes by authors such as Tim Powers, Charles de Lint, Michael Shea and James P. Blaylock. Following this, he...

's Midnight House published Darker Tides,
a collection of Russell's horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...

 and weird fiction
Weird fiction
Weird fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction written in the late 19th and early 20th century. It can be said to encompass the ghost story and other tales of the macabre. Weird fiction is distinguished from horror and fantasy in that it predates the niche marketing of genre fiction...

, in 2006.

The 1995 novel Design for Great-Day, published as by Alan Dean Foster
Alan Dean Foster
Alan Dean Foster is an American author of fantasy and science fiction. He currently resides in Prescott, Arizona, with his wife, and is also known for his novelizations of film scripts...

 and Eric Frank Russell, is an expansion by Foster of a 1953 short story of the same name by Russell.

Writing style and themes

Russell had an easy-going, colloquial writing style that was influenced in part by American "hard-boiled" detective fiction of the kind popularized by Black Mask magazine. Although British, Russell wrote predominantly for an American audience, and was often assumed to be American by readers.

Much of Russell's science fiction is based on what might be described as "Fortean" themes, with Sinister Barrier and Dreadful Sanctuary being the most notable examples. Another common theme is that of the single resourceful human pitted against a ponderous alien bureaucracy
Bureaucracy
A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...

 -- this is the basis for the novels Wasp and Next of Kin, as well as several shorter works.

Russell is sometimes categorized as a humorous writer, and Brian Aldiss
Brian Aldiss
Brian Wilson Aldiss, OBE is an English author of both general fiction and science fiction. His byline reads either Brian W. Aldiss or simply Brian Aldiss. Greatly influenced by science fiction pioneer H. G. Wells, Aldiss is a vice-president of the international H. G. Wells Society...

 describes him as John W. Campbell's "licensed jester". However, Russell's humour generally has a satirical edge, often aimed at authority
Authority
The word Authority is derived mainly from the Latin word auctoritas, meaning invention, advice, opinion, influence, or command. In English, the word 'authority' can be used to mean power given by the state or by academic knowledge of an area .-Authority in Philosophy:In...

 and bureaucracy in its various forms. On other occasions, for example in the short stories "Somewhere a Voice" and "The Army Comes to Venus", his work has a deeper and more serious tone, in which the spiritual
Spirituality
Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...

 aspects of humanity's endeavours and aspirations shine through.

Cultural influences

Russell's short story "Jay Score" (1941) is unusual amongst the pulp fiction of its time in presenting a black
Black people
The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...

 character, the ship's doctor, without any racial stereotyping
Ethnic stereotype
An ethnic stereotype is a generalized representation of an ethnic group, composed of what are thought to be typical characteristics of members of the group.Ethnic stereotypes are commonly portrayed in ethnic jokes.-Ethnic stereotypes:*African Americans...

. Indeed, this story and its sequels (collected in Men, Martians and Machines
Men, Martians and Machines
Men, Martians and Machines is a collection of science-fiction short stories by the British writer Eric Frank Russell. It was first published in 1955.-Contents:...

) may be considered an early example of the science fiction sub-genre in which a spaceship is crewed by a multi-ethnic
Multiethnic society
A multiethnic society is one with members belonging to more than one ethnic group, in contrast to societies which are ethnically homogenous. In practice, virtually all contemporary national societies are multiethnic...

, mixed human/non-human, complement (cf. the much later Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...

).

Russell also appears to have originated the colloquialism "myob" for "Mind your own business
Mind your own business
"Mind your own business" is a common English saying which asks for a respect of other people's privacy. It can mean that a person should stop meddling in what does not concern that person, attend personal affairs of others instead of your own, etc.-Origin:...

", which appears frequently in the novella "...And Then There Were None" (Astounding, June 1951) and in the novel The Great Explosion based upon it.

In 1970, Russell was paid £4689 by the Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

's company Apple Corps
Apple Corps
Apple Corps Ltd. is a multi-armed multimedia corporation founded in January 1968 by the members of The Beatles to replace their earlier company and to form a conglomerate. Its name is a pun. Its chief division is Apple Records, which was launched in the same year...

 for the motion picture rights to his novel Wasp, the contract being signed on behalf of Apple by Ringo Starr
Ringo Starr
Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...

. The film was never made, but it remained one of the most lucrative deals Russell ever made.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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