I’ve overlooked posting about one of my favorite (and one of the most under-rated) authors.
Arthur Bertram Chandler, ‘Jack’ to his friends (which I never got to be) started writing science fiction in 1944 at the behest of John W. Campbell.
Chandler was a seaman working freighters out of England and, later, out of Australia and New Zealand. He’s one of Australia’s favorite science fiction sons; they named a Ditmar Award after him downunder.
Sadly, Chandler passed away in 1984 and his second wife, Susan (with whom he collaborated on at least one novella) just died this past year.
Between 1944 and 1984, Chandler turned out hundreds of stories and numerous novels. Starting in the late 1950s, he created his most enduring literary legacy – the Rim Worlds; colonies out on the edge of the galaxy, where the line between parallel universes is thin.
At about the same time, he also created his greatest character – Commodore John Grimes of the Rim Worlds Naval Reserve.
Grimes has been featured in over 20 novels and numerous shorts, (one of the longest series in SF history) and was the original “Horatio Hornblower of Space” (and the ONLY space-borne Horatio as far as I’m concerned, despite some recent attempts to appropriate the title by other authors and characters).
I’ve been reading Chandler since the mid-sixties and have always been pleased with his attempts to entertain.
There’s much more to Chandler & the Rim Worlds, a lot of which can be found on the website I’ve devoted to his works and the compilation of a concordance thereof (www.rimworlds.com).
Most of his novels are readily available on the used book market; the Science Fiction Book Club released a series of omnibus editions of his works between 2000 and 2004. Check out Abe and plug ‘Bertram Chandler’ into the search bar. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
