SF&F encyclopedia (P-P)PADGETT, LEWIS Henry KUTTNER; C.L. MOORE. PAGE, KATHY (1958- ) UK writer whose first novels - Back in the First Person (1986) and The Unborn Dreams of Clara Riley (1987) - are associational, though tinged with elements of literary fantasy. Island Paradise (1989), set 100 years after the Unfought War, promulgates an ambiguous worldwide UTOPIA whose citizens enjoy lives uncluttered by violence, but are bullied to die soon after they reach 50. Some of the stories assembled in As in Music and Other Stories (coll 1990) are fantasy or sf. KP's style moves from a kind of numb austerity into moments of cautious lyricism. [JC] PAGE, NORVELL W. (1904-1961) US writer who specialized during the 1930s in hero/villain PULP MAGAZINES, much of his production being novel-length stories for The SPIDER , featuring the eponymous SUPERHERO. The Spider sequence was created in competition with the somewhat more successful Shadow tales, mostly written for The Shadow magazine by Walter B. GIBSON. Under the house name Grant STOCKBRIDGE NWP wrote more than 100 Spider tales, many of whose plots verged into the supernatural and sf; those eventually published in book form include Wings of the Black Death (1933; 1969), City of Flaming Shadows 1934; 1970), Builders of the Black Empire (1934; 1980), City Destroyer (1935; 1975), Hordes of the Red Butcher (1935; 1975), Master of the Death Madness (1935; 1980), Overlord of the Damned (1935; 1980), Death Reign of the Vampire King (1935; 1975) and Death and the Spider (1942; 1975). A final Spider title, left unpublished when the magazine folded, was reworked with new characters as Blue Steel (1979) as by Spider Page. As Randolph Craig, NWP created two spin-offs from The Spider, The OCTOPUS and The SCORPION , neither of which extended past a single story; these were subsequently published as The Octopus (1939 as "The City Condemned to Hell"; 1976 chap) and The Scorpion (1939 as "Satan's Incubator"; 1975 chap).Under his own name NWP contributed 3 long stories to UNKNOWN in its first year: "But without Horns" (1940) concerns a MUTANT who uses his PSI POWERS to induce religious worship in those who come into contact with him; Flame Winds (1939; 1969) and Sons of the Bear-God (1939; 1969) are SWORD-AND-SORCERY novels whose hero is based on Prester John. During WWII NWP took a post writing government reports; afterwards he worked for the Atomic Energy Commission. [MJE/JC]See also: GODS AND DEMONS. PAGE, THOMAS (WALKER IV) (1942- ) US writer whose first novel was The Hepahaestus Plague (1973), filmed as BUG (1975), a tale which starts strongly, with vivid descriptions of the effect of an irruption from underground of a new species of beetle capable of emitting fire, but which weakens when it begins to deal with a SCIENTIST who becomes overfascinated with these beetles, which seem to possess a kind of group intelligence. His later novels - The Spirit (1977), Sigmet Active (1978) and The Man who Would not Die (1981) - were borderline sf. [JC] PAGERY, FRANCOIS Gerard KLEIN. PAGET, JOHN John AIKEN. PAGETTI, CARLO (1945- ) Italian critic, Professor of English Literature at the University of Turin. His study of sf Il senso del futuro: la fantascienza nella letteratura Americana ["The Sense of the Future: Science Fiction in American Literature"] (1970) is the first serious literary study of sf by an Italian. Subsequent books are I Marziani alla corte della Regina Vittoria ["Martians at the Court of Queen Victoria"] (1986), on H.G. WELLS's SCIENTIFIC ROMANCES, and Cittadini di un assurdo universo ["Citizens of an Absurd Universe"] (coll 1989), essays on Ambrose BIERCE, Katharine BURDEKIN, H.P. LOVECRAFT, Edgar Allan POE and Mark TWAIN. He ed Nel tempo del sogno ["In the Time of the Dream"] (anth 1988), has had articles on Wells, Philip K. DICK and Burdekin translated in SCIENCE-FICTION STUDIES, and is editor of a critical series in book form devoted to sf, La citta e le stelle ["The City and the Stars"]. He has published a collection of short stories, mostly fantasy, Favole di lontananza ["Fables of Distance"] (coll 1989). He wrote the entry on ITALY in this volume. [PN]See also: CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF. PAIGE, RICHARD Dean R. KOONTZ. PAIN, BARRY (ERIC ODELL) (1864-1928) UK writer best known for the supernatural tales assembled in volumes like Stories in the Dark (coll 1901), and for humorous fiction in which he uneasily condescended to the lower orders. He frequently made superficial use of sf devices and motifs - e.g., the IMMORTALITY of the protagonist of Robinson Crusoe's Return (1906; rev vt The Return and Supperizing Reception of Robinson Crusoe of York, Parrot-Tamer 1921) facilitates the making of a number of satirical points about modern England - and occasionally a tale depends on these devices. An Exchange of Souls (1911) posits a scientific rationale for the said exchange. The title story of The New Gulliver and Other Stories (coll 1913) takes its hero to a futuristic UTOPIA in Ultima Thule. [JC]Other works: In a Canadian Canoe (coll 1891); Stories and Interludes (coll 1892); The One Before (1902); Three Fantasies (coll 1904); The Diary of a Baby: Being a Free Record of the Unconscious Thought of Rosalys Ysolde Smith Aged One Year (1907); The Shadow of the Unseen (1907) with James BLYTH; Here and Hereafter (coll 1911); Stories in Grey (coll 1911); Going Home: Being the Fantastical Romance of the Girl with Angel Eyes and the Man who Had Wings (1921); Short Stories of To-day and Yesterday (coll 1928). PAINE, ALBERT B(IGELOW) (1861-1937) US writer best remembered as Mark TWAIN's confidant and unconscionable expurgator: after Twain's death he published mutilated editions of The Mysterious Stranger (1916) and Mark Twain's Autobiography (1924). ABP was primarily a writer and editor of children's fiction. The Mystery of Evelin Delorme: A Hypnotic Story (1894) exploits the late 19th century's prurient fascination with split personalities, the eponymous heroine committing suicide when her socially unacceptable self comes out. In The Great White Way (1901) a warm, UTOPIAN, Antarctic LOST WORLD peopled by telepaths is discovered by a businessman and a real-estate developer, who are forced to flee when the latter's intentions are revealed. [JC] PAINE, LAURAN (BOSWORTH) (1916- ) US rancher and author, extraordinarily prolific in several fields, with nearly 1000 books under his own name and 85 pseudonyms, almost all for ROBERT HALE LIMITED, over 600 of them Westerns and a very few of them sf. This Time Tomorrow (1963) was published under his own name; further routine SPACE OPERAS are: Focolor (1973) as by Roy Ainsworthy; A Crack in Time (1971), The Undine (1972), Another View (1972), Bannister's Z-Matter (1973) and The Underground Men (1975) as by Mark Carrel; and The Harbinger (1972), The Misplaced Psyche (1973) and Kernel of Death (1973) as by Troy Howard. [JC] PAINTER, THOMAS (1885-1970) US writer who collaborated with Alexander LAING (whom see for details) on The Motives of Nicholas Holtz, being the Weird Tale of the Ironville Virus (1936; vt The Glass Centipede, Retold from the Original Sources 1936 UK). [PN] PAIRAULT, PIERRE [r] Stefan WUL. PAL, GEORGE (1908-1980) Hungarian film producer, based in the USA since 1940, best known for his sf and fantasy films, for which he received a NEBULA Special Award in 1976. Trained as an illustrator in Budapest, GP decided to specialize in animation, and in 1931 moved to Germany, where he worked at the UFA studios. When Hitler came to power GP went to Paris, where he soon became very successful with a series of animated commercials and entertainment films, his Puppetoons. After emigrating to the USA he set up a Puppetoon unit at Paramount Studios.His first live-action film was The Great Rupert (1949) dir Irving Pichel, starring Jimmy Durante and an animated squirrel. He then started work on DESTINATION MOON (1950) dir Pichel, which was so successful - it initiated the sf film boom of the 1950s - that GP immediately chose another sf subject for his next film, WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE (1951) dir Rudolph Mate. This was followed by WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953) dir Byron HASKIN, The Naked Jungle (1954) and CONQUEST OF SPACE (1955), both dir Haskin, ATLANTIS, THE LOST CONTINENT (1959) and The TIME MACHINE (1960), both dir GP, and The POWER (1968) dir Haskin and GP. He also made a number of pure fantasy films during this period, including Tom Thumb (1958) and The Seven Faces of Dr Lao (1964). His last film was DOC SAVAGE: THE MAN OF BRONZE (1974) dir Michael Anderson. He is credited as co-author with Joe Morhaim of Time Machine II (1981), a sequel to H.G. WELLS's THE TIME MACHINE (1895), seemingly written in connection with a film which was never made.GP's dominant interest in special effects often led to other aspects of his films, including scripts and acting, being neglected. Most of his productions, however, possess a colourful bravura that distracts attention from their shortcomings, and he has on occasion produced memorable images. [JB]See also: CINEMA; MOON; ROCKETS. PALLANDER, EDWIN (? -? ) UK author of whom nothing is known except that he published several books and collaborated with Ellsworth DOUGLASS on one story, "The Wheels of Dr Gynochio Gyves" (1899). Across the Zodiac: A Story of Adventure (1896) is a Vernean interplanetary romance which carries its three protagonists ( VERNE's usual complement) through the Solar System in a spaceship captained by a mad scientist. The Adventures of a Micro-Man (1902), one of the tales of miniaturization common to the period ( GREAT AND SMALL), shrinks its protagonists to mites, subjecting them to adventures before they grow again. [JC] PALLEN, CONDE B(ENOIST) (1858-1929) US writer and editor; in the latter capacity he was one of the editors, with C.G. Herbermann and others, of The Catholic Encyclopedia (15 vols 1907-18). Crucible Island: A Romance, an Adventure and an Experiment (1919), a DYSTOPIA, describes the disillusioning experiences of a young radical who is transported to Schlectland, where socialism has been allowed to run rampant, and who comes to his senses while falling in love with the daughter of a longtime resident. They escape to the USA. En passant, points are scored against FEMINISM and the Irish. In Ghost House (1928) a device is invented which reads details of a murder from the walls. [JC] PALMER, DAVID (REAY) (1941- ) US writer whose first story, the impressive "Emergence" for ASF in 1981, was expanded as Emergence (fixup 1984), attracting some notice for its depiction of a USA suffering the consequences of a nuclear HOLOCAUST, and for its juvenile heroine, who represents a superior form of Homo sapiens and whose transcribed voice dominates the tale; some found her obnoxiously reminiscent of the narrator of Robert A. HEINLEIN's THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS (1966). The novel won the Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Memorial Award ( AWARDS). DP's taste for protagonists whose special gifts legitimize their behaviour also helped shape his second novel, Threshold (1985), in which the Galaxy is saved. [JC]See also: PSI POWERS; SUPERMAN. PALMER, JANE (1946- ) UK writer and illustrator who began writing sf with The Planet Dweller (1985) which, with its sequel Moving Moosevan (1990), presents a mildly comic set of parodies of sf tropes in dealing with alien INVASIONS and the like. A somewhat greater force of imagination is demonstrated in The Watcher (1986), which features brave young girls, a mysterious survivor from Victorian times, an ANDROID which longs for human status, and the rulers of the Universe. [JC] PALMER, RAYMOND A(RTHUR) (1910-1977) US author and editor. His childhood was plagued by serious accidents, and in adulthood he stood only 4ft tall and was hunchbacked, but he never allowed physical stress to affect his career. He was an active sf fan in the 1930s - he is credited with publishing the first sf FANZINE, The Comet, in 1930 - and was the author of a fair number of stories, beginning with "The Time Ray of Jandra" for WONDER STORIES in 1930; some later tales were published as by Henry Gade, Frank Paton, J.W. Pelkie, A.R. STEBER and Morris J. Steele. After the death of Stanley G. WEINBAUM in 1935, RAP edited and published a memorial collection of his stories, Dawn of Flame and Other Stories (coll 1936); RAP's only other book was Strange Offering (anth c1945 chap UK) with Otis Adelbert KLINE.It was as an editor that RAP would make his name. When AMAZING STORIES was bought by the Chicago-based ZIFF-DAVIS in 1938 it was decided to replace T. O'Conor SLOANE as editor. RAP, a resident of nearby Milwaukee, was recommended for the job and was appointed. AMZ was in a moribund state by this time; RAP made it livelier, albeit with a more overtly juvenile slant, and it revived. He published work by Edgar Rice BURROUGHS and, in 1939, Isaac ASIMOV's first story, "Marooned off Vesta"; in the same year he began a companion magazine, FANTASTIC ADVENTURES. The vigour of his early editing work, though evident at the time and in retrospect, was submerged during the 1940s by the notoriety he achieved with his promotion as fact of the stories of Richard S. SHAVER. RAP claimed that the popularity of the "Shaver Mystery" gave AMZ the highest circulation ever achieved by an SF MAGAZINE. His interest in PSEUDO-SCIENCE and the occult widened; in 1948, while still employed at Ziff-Davis, he started his own occult magazine, Fate, which has proved enduringly successful.In 1949 he established his own sf magazine, OTHER WORLDS (using the editorial pseudonym Robert N. Webster on the first issue), and shortly afterwards he left Ziff-Davis. In 1950 he began a companion magazine, IMAGINATION, in this case lending his name as a cover for William L. HAMLING, who edited the journal while still officially working for Ziff-Davis. After another severe accident, RAP sold Imagination to Hamling, while Bea Mahaffey edited Other Worlds. On his recovery in 1953, RAP took over the magazine UNIVERSE SCIENCE FICTION and started a companion, SCIENCE STORIES; meanwhile Other Worlds was suspended. Science Stories was short-lived, and in 1955 RAP changed the title of Universe to Other Worlds, continuing the Universe numeration. The magazine began to feature more and more UFO material, and in 1957 was retitled Flying Saucers from Other Worlds, RAP deciding to concentrate all his energies on UFOs and the occult. He later explained that the bewildering title changes of his magazines resulted in part from financial difficulties and the need to throw up smokescreens. A last RAP publication, including UFO and Shaver material, was The HIDDEN WORLD . [MJE/JC] PALMER PUBLICATIONS, INC. OTHER WORLDS; SCIENCE STORIES; UNIVERSE SCIENCE FICTION. PALMER, THOMAS (1955- ) US writer whose first novel, The Transfer (1983), verges on the technothriller, and whose second, Dream Science (1990), made some stir for its quiet (but ultimately ruthless) intelligence. The protagonist of the book is one of those cursed with a perception of lines running across the physical environment which, when crossed, take one into PARALLEL WORLDS. These worlds, unfortunately, offer no solace to the protagonist, and even his eventual return to what he thinks of as prime reality is constrained by a dread sense that there is no true centre to life; that we may simply be passing through the worlds, greyly. [JC] PALTOCK, ROBERT (1697-1767) UK lawyer and writer, known mainly for The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins, a Cornish Man: Relating Particularly his Shipwreck Near the South Pole; his Wonderful Passage Thro' a Subterranean Cavern into a Kind of New World; His There Meeting with a Gawry or Flying Woman (1751), which ranks in popularity as an 18th-century imaginary voyage behind only Daniel DEFOE's Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Jonathan SWIFT's Gulliver's Travels (1726). After discovering a race of winged people, Wilkins breeds with them and teaches them about civilization and the arts of war, while himself manufacturing a flying machine in which he returns, now an old man, to tell his tale. There have been many reprints of the novel, variously titled (e.g., The Unrivalled Adventures of that Great Aeronaut and Glum, Peter Wilkins 1802) and almost always cut. [JC] PALUMBO, DENNIS (JAMES) (1929- ) US writer in whose sf novel, City Wars (1979), set decades after The Levelling when a nuclear HOLOCAUST flattened the USA, several seceding city-states engage in a Great War which leads, through a terminal conflict between New York and Chicago, towards ultimate extinction. The cast-members, who include MUTANTS called "lunks" and a woman called Cassandra, find no solace in the new world. [JC] PAN Leslie BERESFORD. PANGBORN, EDGAR (1909-1976) US writer whose publishing career began with A-100: A Mystery Story (1930) as by Bruce Harrison, and other non-genre work. He published his first sf story, the famous "Angel's Egg", for Gal as late as 1951. In his first sf novel, West of the Sun (1953), six shipwrecked humans found a UTOPIAN colony on the planet Lucifer in association with two native species. When the rescue ship eventually arrives, they decide to stick with the society they have constructed. The reflective conclusion of this novel was typical of EP's work. In A MIRROR FOR OBSERVERS (1954), which won the 1955 INTERNATIONAL FANTASY AWARD, Mars has been guiding humanity into the light of civilization for thousands of years, but matters approach crisis in the 20th century when two Martian observers contest for control over a human boy genius, a potential ethical innovator; the good Martian wins. In both novels-but not always in his career - EP's gracious literacy usually overcomes a tendency towards cloying sententiousness.After two fine non-genre novels - Wilderness of Spring (1958) and The Trial of Callista Blake (1961), a moving courtroom drama - EP created his most successful and sustained work, the Davy sequence, comprising, by rough internal chronology, The Company of Glory (coll of linked stories 1975), most of the stories assembled in Still I Persist in Wondering (coll 1978), the loosely related The Judgment of Eve (see below), and DAVY (fixup 1964). The sequence is set in a USA devastated by a nuclear HOLOCAUST, whose immediate consequences dominate - at times harshly - the first volumes. By the time of Davy's birth, 250 years later, the land has long been balkanized into feudal enclaves, rather romantically conceived, and Davy's picaresque adventures (which he recounts in retirement) generate what might be called a kind of nostalgia for a livable future, though at the same time it is clear that Davy, and those he inspires, will necessarily begin to rebuild a more complex world. Set in the same universe, The Judgment of Eve (1966) is less convincingly constructed in mythopoeic terms, as Eve tries to choose among the lifestyles of her disparate male suitors. The trek on which she consequently sends them, in order to find out the meaning of love, probably represents the deepest of EP's frequent descents into distinctly uneasy bombast. When, however, he was able to control himself - the early novels, most of Davy, and most of the stories in Good Neighbors and Other Strangers (coll 1972) sidestep these pitfalls - the inherent though sometimes selfconsciously rural decency of his view of life won through. [JC]About the author: Edgar Pangborn: A Bibliography (1985 chap) by Gordon BENSON Jr.See also: ALIENS; ARTS; CHILDREN IN SF; GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION; MUSIC; MUTANTS; PASTORAL. PANIC IN YEAR ZERO! (vt End of the World) Film (1962). Alta Vista/AIP. Dir Ray Milland, starring Milland, Jean Hagen, Frankie Avalon, Mary Mitchell. Screenplay Jay Simms, John Morton, story by Simms, based (without credit) on the stories "Lot" (1953) and "Lot's Daughter" (1954) by Ward MOORE. 92 mins. B/w.This cynical, violent film - one of the earliest examples of the SURVIVALIST ethos in cinema - shows how a typical US family have to act to survive the aftermath of an atomic HOLOCAUST: by trusting no one and shooting first. The father quickly, and almost gleefully, reverts to being a ruthless "natural survivor" who will let nothing stand in the way of getting his family to safety after Los Angeles has been A-bombed. The escape along roads jammed with panicking traffic is strongly done, but thereafter the film subsides into clumsy adventure in the mountains; it is inferior to, and lacks the sexual reverberations of, the stories on which it was loosely based, though it retains some biblical parallels. The novelization is End of the World * (1962) by Dean OWEN, and this was also the title of the film's re-release. [JB/PN] PANICO EN EL TRANSIBERIANO (vt Horror Express) Film (1972). Granada/Benmar. Dir Eugenio Martin, starring Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Telly Savalas. Screenplay Arnaud d'Usseau, Julian Halevey. 90 mins, cut to 88 mins. Colour.In this Spanish/UK coproduction the year is 1906. The body of an apparent "missing link", dug up in China by an anthropologist (Lee), comes to life on the Trans-Siberian Express and turns out to be an ALIEN who crash-landed on Earth eons ago. He has the power to transfer his personality from one body to another, and also to absorb people's personalities. The film is slick and amusing, and moves so fast that there is little time to dwell on its absurdities. It came into being only because the producer bought two model trains that had been used in the epic Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) and had a script written around them. The direction is in routine exploitation-movie style, but the lively script has some surprising turns. [JB/PN] PANSHIN, ALEXEI (A.) Working name of US writer Alexis Adams Panshin (1940- ), initially most active as an sf fan, in this role doing considerable writing and editing, for which he won a HUGO in 1967. He began publishing sf stories in 1963 with "Down to the Worlds of Men" for If, and soon became an active author of both fiction and criticism. The story "Dark Conception" (1964), as by Louis J.A. Adams, was written in collaboration with Joe L. HENSLEY. AP's short work has been assembled as Farewell to Yesterday's Tomorrow (coll 1975; with "Lady Sunshine and the Magoon of Beatus" added, rev 1976) and Transmutations: A Book of Personal Alchemy (coll 1982). His first novel, RITE OF PASSAGE (1963 If as "Down to the Worlds of Men"; exp 1968), which won a 1968 NEBULA, remains his only significant singleton. It is a complex and expertly told novel, making adroit use of the basic rite-of-passage structure ( POCKET UNIVERSE) that underlies almost all tales set in GENERATION STARSHIPS; the fact that in this instance the asteroid-ship is capable of FASTER-THAN-LIGHT speeds may modify the consciousness of the protagonists-they have not been travelling long enough to forget their origins - but does not make the venue itself seem any less constrictive. The heroine must progress from childhood into questioning adulthood via a dangerous trial conducted on the colony planet which her ship - one of eight containing the survivors of the destruction of Earth 150 years earlier - is currently monitoring. Surviving her ordeal, she not only comes into her own as a person, but validly (as in the classic model) comes to question the stratified "adult" quasidemocracy of the ship. AP then wrote the Anthony Villiers series of SPACE OPERAS about a lordly adventurer and his alien companion Torve the Trog: Star Well (1968), The Thurb Revolution (1968) and Masque World (1969). The spoofing of sf's PULP-MAGAZINE conventions was amusing and without malice and the echoes of Leslie CHARTERIS's Saint were enjoyable, but the series lacked the energy of its predecessor. As a writer of sf, AP then fell relatively quiet.Heinlein in Dimension: A Critical Analysis (1968), a comprehensive study of the works of Robert A. HEINLEIN, was perhaps the most thorough and literate book on a US sf writer written to that date. It breaks its subject's career into the 3 phases (1940-42; 1947-58; after 1958) that every subsequent critic has utilized, arguing the superior merit of the later juveniles, and presenting a case for thinking of his later work as inferior. In the introduction to his first collection, AP credited his wife, Cory PANSHIN (married 1969), as his collaborator on some of his stories, and announced that from 1975 all future work would be jointly signed. Much of the Panshins' joint criticism first appeared in Fantastic, and some of these pieces, along with others, appeared in SF in Dimension (coll 1976; exp 1980) as by both authors, as did Mondi interiori ["Interior Worlds"] (1978 Italy) which, it is understood, contained material later developed by the Panshins into their Hugo-winning magnum opus, The World Beyond the Hill: Science Fiction and the Quest for Transcendence (1989), a massive and coherent history of sf whose sustaining argument - that sf answered the world's need for a transcendent domain through the creation of galactic venues and concerns beyond the "village" of Earth - made inevitable its narrative halt at the year 1945, just at the end of the GOLDEN AGE chaired by John W. CAMPBELL Jr. So clear a cognitive strategy may have engendered a too-ruthless clarity of view - and an all too simple acceptance of the notion of Progress - but the detailed exegeses of critically neglected writers like E.E. "Doc" SMITH and A.E. VAN VOGT are very much worth examining. In its close modelling of GENRE SF's view of its own development, the book was exemplary; by virtue of writing it the Panshins became US sf's house historians. [JC]See also: CHILDREN IN SF; CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF; FABULATION; GALACTIC EMPIRES; PARANOIA; SENSE OF WONDER; SOCIOLOGY; SPACESHIPS; WOMEN AS PORTRAYED IN SCIENCE FICTION. PANSHIN, CORY (SEIDMAN) (1947- ) US writer and critic, collaborator with her husband, Alexei PANSHIN (whom see for details), from before 1975. She shared a nonfiction HUGO with him for The World Beyond the Hill: Science Fiction and the Quest for Transcendence (1989). Her interest in Sufism and other philosophies of transcendence suffuses, in particular, their joint criticism. [JC]See also: SENSE OF WONDER. PANTROPY This useful item of sf TERMINOLOGY was coined by James BLISH in the stories later melded together as THE SEEDLING STARS (fixup 1957). Blish's view was that in humanity's COLONIZATION OF OTHER PLANETS (which see for further discussion), we must either change the planet to make it habitable ( TERRAFORMING) or change humanity itself to fit it for survival in an alien environment (pantropy). The Greek root of the word means "turning everything". Pantropy is usually undertaken by some form of biological engineering ( GENETIC ENGINEERING). An ugly pantropy fable is "Between the Dark and the Daylight" (1958 Infinity) by David C. Hodgkins (Algis BUDRYS), reprinted as by Budrys in Budrys' Inferno (coll 1963; vt The Furious Future 1964 UK), in which generations of humans are genetically rendered ever more inhuman to fit them for violent competition with murderous alien life. MAN PLUS (1976) by Frederik POHL, a novel that tackles several pantropy issues, prepares a man for living on MARS by changing him into a CYBORG. [PN] PAPE, RICHARD (BERNARD) (1916- ) UK writer of various books including his bestselling wartime autobiography, Boldness Be My Friend (1953), and a number of thrillers. In And So Ends the World ... (1961) arrogant mankind is given a severe warning from high-up cosmic sources - the Moon disappears - and comes to its senses. The novel is more mysticism than sf. [JC] PAPERBACK-BOOK FORMAT DIGEST. PAPER TIGER Roger DEAN. PAPILIAN, VICTOR [r] ROMANIA. PAPP, DESIDERIUS (1897- ) German writer whose nonfiction Zukunft und Ende der Welt (1932; trans H.J. Stenning as Creation's Doom 1934 UK) assesses the various ways in which the world might end, in a manner which was influential on contemporary sf. It has been incorrectly referred to in some bibliographies as a work of fiction. [JC] PARABELLUM Ferdinand GRAUTOFF. PARAL, VLADIMIR [r] CZECH AND SLOVAK SF. PARALLAX VIEW, THE John FRANKENHEIMER; ROLLOVER. PARALLEL EVOLUTION EVOLUTION. PARALLEL WORLDS A parallel world is another universe situated "alongside" our own, displaced from it along a spatial fourth DIMENSION (parallel worlds are often referred to in sf as "other dimensions"). Although whole universes may lie parallel in this sense, most stories focus on parallel Earths. The parallel-world idea forms a useful framework for the notion of historical ALTERNATE WORLDS, and is often used in this way. Most of the "secondary worlds" of modern FANTASY are explicit or implicit parallel worlds. Notable early sf extrapolations include J.H. ROSNY aine's "Un autre monde" (1895; trans as "Another World" 1962) and two stories by H.G. WELLS: "The Strange Case of Davidson's Eyes" (1895) and "The Plattner Story" (1896).The idea that other worlds lie parallel to our own and occasionally connect with it is one of the oldest speculative ideas in literature and legend; examples range from Fairyland to the "astral plane" of Spiritualists and mystics. There are two basic folkloristic themes connected with the notion; in one, an ordinary human is translocated into a fantasy land where s/he undergoes adventures and may find the love and fulfilment that remain beyond reach on Earth; in the other, a communication or visitation from the other world affects the life of an individual within this world, often injuring or destroying that person. Both patterns are very evident in modern imaginative fiction, shaping whole subgenres. Much of the overlap between sf, FANTASY and HORROR fiction-which makes clear-cut DEFINITIONS of the genres impossible - occurs by virtue of the promiscuous use of parallel worlds. The first pattern was modernized by Edgar Rice BURROUGHS, A. MERRITT and other PULP-MAGAZINE writers before the founding of AMAZING STORIES, and was easily dressed up with pseudo-scientific jargon; a notable early example is The Blind Spot (1921; 1951) by Homer Eon FLINT and Austin HALL. Henry KUTTNER and C.L. MOORE wrote several Merrittesque SCIENCE-FANTASY novels after this fashion, notably The Dark World (1946; 1965) and Beyond Earth's Gates (1949 Startling Stories as "The Portal in the Picture"; 1954 dos). Among the first writers to co-opt parallel worlds for straightforward sf melodrama were Edmond HAMILTON, in "Locked Worlds" (1929), and Murray LEINSTER, in "The Fifth-Dimensional Catapult" (1931) and its sequels. The idea was frequently used in humorous fashion by L. Sprague DE CAMP and others in UNKNOWN WORLDS. The second pattern, in which entities from a parallel world impinge on ours, was sciencefictionalized by William Hope HODGSON in The Ghost Pirates (1909); his earlier The House on the Borderland (1908) uses the landscapes of a parallel world to map and symbolically display the psyche of its protagonist. The renewal of such traditional horror motifs by sf imagery was taken further by H.P. LOVECRAFT in a manner imitated by his many disciples, including Frank Belknap LONG and Donald WANDREI.The early GENRE-SF writers were slow to develop more extravagant speculative possibilities, although one notable attempt to describe a parallel world with different physical laws from those holding in our own continuum was made by Clark Ashton SMITH in "The Dimension of Chance" (1932); this notion was eventually developed much more carefully and elaborately by Isaac ASIMOV in THE GODS THEMSELVES (1972). Raymond F. JONES's Renaissance (1944; 1951; vt Man of Two Worlds) is straightforward, and Fritz LEIBER's use of parallel alternative worlds in Destiny Times Three (1945; 1957) is quantitatively restrained. It was in the 1950s and 1960s that exploration of the quirkier corollaries of the basic notion really got under way. Clifford D. SIMAK imagined a more extensive series of Earths - all empty of humanity and thus available for colonization and exploitation - in Ring Around the Sun (1953) and examined the hazards of trading between parallel worlds in "Dusty Zebra" (1954) and "The Big Front Yard" (1958), as did Alan E. NOURSE in "Tiger by the Tail" (1951). Gordon R. DICKSON's Delusion World (1955 Science Fiction Stories as "Perfectly Adjusted"; exp 1961) features a city simultaneously occupied by two societies, each invisible to the other.A common variant of the theme is that of a multiplicity of almost-identical worlds existing in parallel: alternate worlds in which there has been no significant change. Examples include "The Celestial Plot" (1948; trans 1964) by Adolfo BIOY CASARES and "Next Door, Next World" (1961) by Robert Donald Locke. In Robert SILVERBERG's "Trips" (1974) transuniversal tourists wander aimlessly through worlds similar and dissimilar. Parallel worlds often feature eccentric societies, sometimes for purposes of SATIRE, and sometimes equally eccentric patterns of EVOLUTION - like that in Stephen BOYETT's The Architect of Sleep (1986), where raccoons have become the dominant technological species. Bob SHAW has used the notion cleverly in two original novels: The Two-Timers (1968), in which a man who has lost his wife inadvertently creates a parallel world in which she still exists, and A Wreath of Stars (1976), in which two worlds made of different species of matter co-exist until the approach of an anti-neutrino star shifts the orbit of one of them. A different kind of parallellism is featured in a group of stories in which "timeslips" bring different eras of earthly history into geographical proximity - a motif featured in "Sidewise in Time" (1934) by Leinster and October the First is Too Late (1966) by Fred HOYLE. The idea that parallel worlds might include literal versions of fictional worlds as well as alternative histories is proposed in "The Number of the Beast" (1980) by Robert A. HEINLEIN and more sensitively developed in Frankenstein Unbound (1973) by Brian W. ALDISS. Larry NIVEN's "All the Myriad Ways" (1969) deals tentatively with the psychological implications of multiple universes. Richard COWPER's Breakthrough (1967) extrapolates the psychological attractions of the concept, as do Christopher PRIEST's stories of the Dream Archipelago, including The Affirmation (1981).Modern uses of the theme usually imagine an infinite number of parallel worlds extending in a manifold which contains all possible Earthly histories and perhaps all possible physical universes. The notion that the perceived Universe is simply one single aspect of such a "multiverse" has been lent credence by the "many-worlds interpretation" of the enigmas of quantum mechanics propounded by, for example, John Wheeler, and popularized in nonfiction books by writers like Paul DAVIES and John GRIBBIN. Keith LAUMER's Worlds of the Imperium (1962) and its sequels deploy this kind of infinite series of parallel worlds in connection with alternative histories, as do Richard C. MEREDITH's At the Narrow Passage (1973) and its sequel and Frederik POHL's The Coming of the Quantum Cats (1986). Certain philosophical implications of the many-worlds interpretation are explored more-or-less seriously in a number of sf novels, including Aldiss's Report on Probability A (1968), Graham Dunstan MARTIN's Time-Slip (1986), Greg EGAN's Quarantine (1992) and Pohl and Jack WILLIAMSON's The Singers of Time (1991).Modern fantasy novels - including most of those in the intermediate science-fantasy category - sometimes draw upon the legacy of sf recomplication in order to invigorate their use of parallel worlds. Notable examples include Roger ZELAZNY's Amber series and Michael MOORCOCK's many SWORD-AND-SORCERY series, which are all bound together (with some sf novels) within a hypothetical multiverse. [BS] PARANOIA Paranoia is common in sf; schizophrenia (which we also cover here, although aware that it is a wholly different condition) is comparatively rare. Both are also discussed in rather a different context under PSYCHOLOGY.It is obviously necessary to distinguish between sf stories about paranoia (a fairly small group) and sf stories whose implicit attitude is paranoid (an extremely large group); most stories discussed below belong to the latter group. Paranoia has been defined as "a mental disorder characterized by systematic delusions, as of grandeur or, especially, persecution". The delusions ( PERCEPTION) of persecution that appear to lie behind much sf were discussed in a forum of the SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA, and 3 papers were published together as a pamphlet, Paranoia and Science Fiction (coll 1967 chap), the contributors being Alexei PANSHIN, James BLISH and also Joanna RUSS, who argued that, historically, the paranoid element in sf stems largely from its roots in the GOTHIC. It is fundamental to the gothic that none of us is safe; that it is the nature of the Universe to contain menaces that may at any time, arbitrarily, threaten us. Such menaces play a prominent role in, for example, the stories of Ambrose BIERCE, notably "The Damned Thing" (1893), a tale of a ravening invisible monster.The PULP MAGAZINES, especially WEIRD TALES, but also the early SF MAGAZINES, were fond of such stories. H.P. LOVECRAFT is an almost perfect example of a writer whose work exhibits a systematic paranoid frame of reference; basic to his work was the idea that adherents of cults formed to worship malign gods are conspiring throughout the world to bring those gods physically back to rule us and feed from us. There was no lack of paranoid stories at the sf end of the spectrum, either; most stories of INVASION, whether by foreigners or ALIENS, fall into this category. Paranoia is fundamental, too, to whole classes of MAINSTREAM fiction, especially ABSURDIST fiction (often bordering on sf); Franz KAFKA wrote little else but stories of this kind.However, one should remember the old dictum that "the paranoid is not entirely wrong". Invasions, after all, do take place; people are sometimes persecuted (though seldom turned into beetles as in Kafka's famous story); the Universe, as simple observation shows, does indeed contain menaces. Also, one should not mistake the writer for the tale; paranoid stories are not necessarily written by paranoiacs, though some GENRE-SF writers may have been consciously feeding the perceived paranoia of their readership.Early paranoid stories in the sf magazines include "Parasite" (1935) by Harl VINCENT, where invading aliens attach themselves to us and control our thoughts, and "The Earth-Owners" (1931) by Edmond HAMILTON, one of the first examples of a theme later to be enormously popular in sf: that Earth is already invaded and we are manipulated by aliens in disguise. Charles FORT formulated this paranoid insight pithily: "We are property." Many sf writers took the hint; e.g., Eric Frank RUSSELL in Sinister Barrier (1939; 1943; rev 1948) and Dreadful Sanctuary (1948; 1951; rev 1963). A common variant on the theme, which must have won sf countless adherents among genuine paranoiacs, is that many people in mental hospitals are there because they have uncovered the conspiracy, but nobody will listen; an example is "Come and Go Mad" (1949) by Fredric BROWN, where it turns out that Earth is controlled by an intelligent HIVE-MIND (of ants); the man who uncovers the truth is cold-bloodedly driven mad. AMAZING STORIES improved its circulation very considerably in the years 1945-7 by publishing a series of purportedly fact-based stories by Richard S. SHAVER showing how we are all manipulated by malign underground ROBOTS.Conspiracy theories of the Shaver variety are extremely popular among propagandists of the PSEUDO-SCIENCES, many of whom themselves have believed that there is a conspiracy (or "cover-up", to use the prevalent terminology) among the scientific community to suppress their findings - a phenomenon discussed by Martin GARDNER in his In the Name of Science (1952; rev vt Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science 1957) and by other writers, notably John T. SLADEK in The New Apocrypha (1973), which has many interesting observations about the relationship of the pseudo-sciences themselves to paranoia. Among the more popular pseudo-science cults are the groups believing we are being secretly observed by UFOS and/or endorsing Erich VON DANIKEN's belief that human progress is the result of alien intervention. Cult beliefs about UFOs are very widespread, as witness the popularity of the tv series PROJECT UFO (1978-79) and 1980s tale like W. Allen HARBINSON's Projekt Saucer series (1980-91) or Whitley STRIEBER's Communion (1987) and Transformation: The Breakthrough (1988), the latter purporting to be true accounts of the author's and then his son's abduction by aliens. The Strieber books were best-sellers; Project UFO was the only sf drama series ever to make it into the top 20 of US tv programmes (in terms of number of viewers).An sf subgenre that fascinatingly mixes delusions of grandeur with delusions of persecution is the tyrannized- SUPERMAN story, especially associated with A.E. VAN VOGT, whose oeuvre probably contains more systematic conspiracy theories than that of any other writer in sf. Notable examples are SLAN (1940; 1946; rev 1951) and The World of A (1945; rev 1948; rev 1970; vt The World of Null-A). Similarly paranoid patterns occur in most of Keith LAUMER's supermen stories of the 1960s and 1970s. Van Vogt was later to be associated with L. Ron HUBBARD's DIANETICS movement, whose appeal was in part to the same mixture: the desire to be superior and the fear of being different. Hubbard himself wrote one of the most forceful paranoia stories in pulp sf: Fear (1940; 1957; in Typewriter in the Sky/Fear, coll 1951). This is a story both paranoid and about paranoia: it can be taken either as the case history of a psychotic killer or as a demonstration of demonic manipulation; in either event, a vivid and frightening series of delusions is projected."Dreams are Sacred" (1948) by Peter Phillips (1921- ) has a telepath entering the mind of a paranoid in order to destroy his grandiose fantasies at root, but perhaps the most interesting study of a delusory framework is the one presented as fact in Robert LINDNER's The Fifty-Minute Hour (coll 1955; vt The Jet-Propelled Couch UK), a case-study of an sf fan who believes himself to be living in a SPACE OPERA, and merely dreaming reality.The other major paranoid variant is the story of the alien menace which can either change its shape or attach itself as a parasite to a human ( PARASITISM AND SYMBIOSIS); either way, the fear is that the inhuman result looks just like us. This is an image from the very heart of paranoia: the idea that our friends, sweethearts or even parents could be mysteriously other, hateful, dangerous and to be destroyed. In real life such delusions have led to murder; they are disturbingly popular in sf. The most celebrated early example is John W. CAMPBELL Jr's story "Who Goes There?" (1938) - filmed twice, the remake The THING (1982) more closely and unnervingly duplicating Campbell's original theme as the comradeship of a research installation crumbles into terrible isolation - but the heyday of stories of this kind was the 1950s. This was the period of the Cold War, when almost daily propaganda encouraged US citizens to believe that a secret conspiracy of communists and homosexuals was preparing to subvert the American way of life; it was the time of the McCarthy hearings, and of the evangelical religious revival largely led by Billy Graham; paranoia was in the air. The frightening thing about communists and homosexuals, as everyone knew, was that from the outside they looked just like us. Hence, in part, the unprecedented popularity of stories about aliens who looked like humans, especially in the CINEMA (see also MONSTER MOVIES), including such films as I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE (1958), INVADERS FROM MARS (1953), INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956) and IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE (1953). (Over a decade later the theme entered tv in the form of the series The INVADERS , and there was a resurgence of the genre in the 1980s, with films like THEY LIVE [1988] and SOCIETY [1989], and tv shows like WAR OF THE WORLDS [1988-90].) In book form the best known example is Robert A. HEINLEIN's The Puppet Masters (1951), where the analogy between the alien group mind and totalitarian communism was made overtly.The most notable exponents of paranoia in written sf were Richard MATHESON, Robert SHECKLEY and Philip K. DICK, Matheson in almost everything he wrote, especially his filmscripts for The INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN (1957) and, later, Duel (1971). (The latter film, like DEMON SEED [1977], falls into the category of machines-are-out-to-get-us stories, much used by the writer and film director Michael CRICHTON.) Sheckley's style is more rueful and ironic; he pokes fun at paranoia even while most of his stories - which are clear demonstrations of his belief that the universe is out to get us - invoke it. By far the most important writer in this area has been Dick, in whose novels the basic question is often: "To what extent is a paranoid (or schizophrenic) frame of reference delusory, and to what extent is reality itself a mere construct erected defensively by the mind in order to maintain sanity?" Several of Dick's stories take place, in effect, in ALTERNATE WORLDS actually projected by paranoid consciousnesses. Three novels relevant to the paranoia theme are Eye in the Sky (1957), Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964) and, most powerfully, THE THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRITCH (1965). Dick's novels are amazing in the emotional intensity of their psychodramas and their cavalier attitude towards reality, but dissolution of all meaning is (mostly) held at bay by the calm and wit of their narrative voice. Delusory systems that can in fact be entered and regarded as real are quite common in sf, especially among writers like Heinlein for whom solipsism is an important theme; an outstanding example is Richard MCKENNA, whose 12 sf stories published 1958-68 project imaginary worlds as real over and over again; it is not clear whether this sort of story more closely approaches paranoia or schizophrenia. One paranoid idee fixe of the period turns up frequently, notably in stories by Frederik POHL, with C.M. KORNBLUTH or solo: that a small group of very selfish near-immortals is secretly manipulating society behind the scenes. Examples are Gladiator-at-Law (1955), by both, and Drunkard's Walk (1960), by Pohl.UK examples of paranoia stories from the 1950s are less common, though Alien Life (1954) by E.C. TUBB, in which a starship crew is taken over by alien parasites with the idea of invading Earth, would certainly qualify. This idea has been used several times since, as in the film TERRORE NELLO SPAZIO (1965; vt Planet of the Vampires) and QUATERMASS II (1957; vt Enemy from Space). (Most sf/ HORROR films fall into the paranoia category, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD [1968], Demon Seed and VIDEODROME [1982] being good examples.)The hysterical edge of 1950s paranoid sf did not dissipate as some of the worst Cold War fears subsided in the 1960s, but it did change its nature, when a different (and actual) war took place involving the USA, whose armed forces fought in Vietnam through the second half of the decade, not finally withdrawing until 1975. The assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 also heightened feelings of paranoia. Elements of division in US society were reflected in a series of darkly paranoid films about POLITICS directed by John FRANKENHEIMER, with The MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962), Seven Days in May (1964) and SECONDS (1966); the exiled left-wing director Joseph Losey (1909-1984), a victim of Hollywood politics in the 1950s, made The DAMNED (1961) in the UK; Stanley KUBRICK added new ingredients to the paranoid brew with DR STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964), and Theodore Flicker both spoofed and endorsed conspiracy theorizing with The PRESIDENT'S ANALYST (1967). Also extremely relevant is the UK tv series The PRISONER (1968), in which a political prisoner is subjected to ever more grotesque psychological manipulations.In written sf, monuments of paranoia from the late 1950s to the early 1970s include: Algis BUDRYS's WHO? (1958), in which nobody knows if an enigmatic man in a metal mask is a good US scientist or a Russian spy; several of Christopher HODDER-WILLIAMS's 1960s novels in which the protagonist's sanity is called into question as he makes curious discoveries; Philip Jose FARMER's Riverworld series (from 1965), in which the human race is apparently reincarnated en masse as a cold-blooded experiment; Richard COWPER's Breakthrough (1967), in which communication from outside seems like madness from inside; Frank HERBERT's The Santaroga Barrier (1968), in which an entire community is cut off and apparently has its identity submerged (here what begins as horrifying is cleverly tilted so as to seem almost acceptable by the end); John BRUNNER's The Jagged Orbit (1969), in which paranoia is endemic and taken for granted in a NEAR-FUTURE situation of racial hatred; Roger ZELAZNY's Amber series (from 1970) in which a family of quasi-superbeings plot constantly against one another, and real universes keep on turning out to be mere shadows of some further but unreachable reality; John T. Sladek's The Muller-Fokker Effect (1970), which takes US paranoia as its prime target; and Norman SPINRAD's The Iron Dream (1972), which parodies sf paranoia by passing itself off as a SWORD-AND-SORCERY novel written by Adolf Hitler.Though most of this work in book form shows no special pattern, the films of the 1960s certainly did, and all this activity culminated in a second wave of paranoia books and films that emerged in the mid-1970s, and - in the cinema, at least - continues intermittently to the present day. This new paranoia boom was shaped differently from its 1950s predecessor; the earlier period produced paranoia stories about outside menaces that ultimately endangered the State; the later boom produced a more domestic version in which the menace came from within, and was very often the State itself - as in most of the films noted above - or even, in an inward claustrophobic spiral, the family itself, in the case of Richard CONDON's Winter Kills (1974), a FABULATION about a political family closely resembling the Kennedys. The 1970s boom, though it built on conspiracy theories of the 1960s, was immediately attributable to the revelations following the 1972 break-in at Watergate which climaxed with President Nixon's resignation. It is hardly surprising that paranoid sf this time around emerged mostly (and perhaps justifiably) in stories that blended sf with POLITICS, as in the borderline sf film The Parallax View (1974) and the 1979 film of Condon's Winter Kills. Among the many more obviously sciencefictional (though still political) paranoid film scenarios that followed are The CRAZIES (1973), CHOSEN SURVIVORS (1974), CAPRICORN ONE (1977), The FURY (1978), The BOYS FROM BRAZIL (1978), The CHINA SYNDROME (1979), SCANNERS (1980), ROLLOVER (1981), BLUE THUNDER (1982), ENDANGERED SPECIES (1982), FIRESTARTER (1984), KAMIKAZE (1986), The BLOB (1988) and BRAIN DEAD (1989), each of which involves a conspiracy, in most cases supported secretly by the apparatus of the State.Curiously enough, conspiracy-theory material of this sort did not much permeate written genre sf in the 1970s, though it was very obvious in the sort of fabulations written by Kurt VONNEGUT Jr and especially Thomas PYNCHON, a tradition continued in the work of many others, including William T. VOLLMANN in his You Bright and Risen Angels: A Cartoon (1987 UK). Within more obviously generic work, a kind of knowing paranoia characterized a series of novels by Barry N. MALZBERG (some listed under PSYCHOLOGY) which see Man as a puppet in some kind of enigmatic or indifferent cosmic game; but the conspiracy-theory work par excellence was Robert SHEA's and Robert Anton WILSON's Illuminatus! (3 vols 1975), in which recent political history is explained in terms of a dazzlingly complex series of interlocking conspiracies by rival secret societies, some with histories going back to ATLANTIS. Algis Budrys's Michaelmas (1977) comes out, rather worriedly, on the side of conspiracy by producing as hero the man who secretly manipulates human politics.In the 1980s, paranoia in genre sf may have been slightly in abeyance, though it appeared in recurrent motifs of various sub-genres: the "shoot first, ask questions afterward" mentality of some SURVIVALIST FICTION; the godlike manipulations of various VIRTUAL REALITIES in novels by Jack CHALKER and others; and some of the more sophisticated SPACE OPERAS, in which galactic history (including ours) turns out to have been warped by alien superbeings, as in Paul J. MCAULEY's Eternal Light (1991). The most senior 1980s authors whose worlds are readable as paranoid are perhaps William GIBSON and Orson Scott CARD, but in rather different ways. Gibson's characteristically Canadian presentation is of struggling protagonists who often find themselves treated as puppets, as if free will may come to be illusory in a sufficiently complex world; Card's protagonists, who exist in a kinetic Universe pervaded by a sense of omnipotent presence, are - more typically of the USA - both manipulated and manipulative, the tool of greater forces or in the upshot godlike themselves. Card's Universe is intensely hierarchical, with his protagonists ranked high, but it is not always clear which rung of the ladder he believes the rest of us to be standing on; he may believe that we have free will if we stick to the rules.It is difficult to generalize about paranoia in sf; clearly it is important and has led to some distinguished work. It does seem as if sf of the last few decades has matured and that, where sf once simply reflected paranoia, it is now more often written to analyse the very real paranoia that the writers know to exist in society. Western society has a cumbrous, bureaucratic power system; no wonder if the average individual feels at the mercy of forces he or she cannot even identify. In all paranoid sf the question of our free will is the fundamental one.Schizophrenia is very much rarer in sf, though there is a small but persistent subgenre of tales about dual personality, its earliest classic being Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis STEVENSON. The popular belief that schizophrenia is a synonym for split personality is incorrect; in clinical psychology schizophrenia is more complex and more common than that. However, it is the split-personality theme that has most attracted sf writers ( PSYCHOLOGY for further examples). An amusing variant can be found in Robert Sheckley's The Alchemical Marriage of Alistair Crompton (1978 UK; vt Crompton Divided 1988 US), in which split personalities can be excised by psychic surgery and implanted into new bodies. The film FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956) features a self-controlled scientist out of touch with his own subconscious mind, the "id"; in a surprisingly successful post-Freudian variation on Stevenson's Jekyll-and-Hyde syndrome, his secret passions become literally projected into the form of a ravening monster.Where stories of PARASITISM regularly have a subtext of paranoia, those of symbiosis often appear schizophrenic, at least in such tales as Brian STABLEFORD's Hooded Swan series, where the symbiote literally inhabits the host's brain. (An earlier example is Algis Budrys's "Silent Brother" [1956].) Stableford is one of the few sf writers to use schizophrenia in the modern sense as an sf theme, in Man in a Cage (1975), where a schizophrenic is chosen to take part in a space project which might prove impossible for ordinary people. (Samuel R. DELANY had used a similar idea in "The Star Pit" [1967], but there the spacemen, though unbalanced, were not schizophrenic.)Theodore STURGEON wrote several strong (but perhaps glib) stories about schizophrenia, including "The Other Man" (1956), and "Who?" (1955; vt "Bulkhead"), which is about the deliberate splitting of an astronaut's personality to save him from insanity during a long space flight alone. And, of course, his gestalt creation in MORE THAN HUMAN (fixup 1953) consists of the joining together of individually maimed persons, each of whom (before joining) is like an inadequate, schizophrenic personality split off from some unknowable whole. Another story about the deliberate splitting of personality is Wyman GUIN's interesting "Beyond Bedlam" (1951).The most consistently evocative use of schizophrenic themes in sf, however, is in the work of Philip K. Dick, notably in We Can Build You (1972) and Martian Time-Slip (1964). Both use the word schizophrenia in the full clinical sense, and both treat schizophrenics with considerable empathy, though not necessarily sympathy; the latter is fascinating in its theorizing that the anomie of the schizophrenic may be to do with his or her subjective experience of time being radically removed from the normal; the desolated landscapes projected by (or perceived by) the schizoid mind are memorable. [PN]See also: MONSTERS; SUPERNATURAL CREATURES. PARASITE MURDERS, THE (vt They Came from Within; vt Shivers) Film (1974). Cinepix/Canadian Film Development Corp. Written/dir David CRONENBERG, starring Paul Hampton, Joe Silver, Lynn Lowry, Alan Migicovsky, Barbara Steele. 87 mins, cut to 77 mins. Colour.In an attempt to develop a beneficial symbiote, a scientist creates a parasite that, when it invades a human body, makes its host sexually ravenous. The vaguely phallic parasites spread though an isolated apartment building, and sexual apocalypse follows, the film ending with the sterile high-rise building's surviving occupants climbing into their cars to infect first Canada and then the world. The film has SPLATTER-MOVIE sequences and other scenes, notably the parasite's vaginal penetration of Steele while she is in the bath, of a distinctly neauseating kind, but it transcends the exploitation-movie genre to which it belongs through its wit and intensity, and its readiness to follow its axioms through to their conclusions. This was Cronenberg's first commercial film, notable for its remarkably bold visual metaphors. [PN]See also: CINEMA; MONSTER MOVIES; PARASITISM AND SYMBIOSIS; SEX. PARASITISM AND SYMBIOSIS Parasitism and symbiosis are Nature's extreme forms of commensalism (physical association). A parasitic species promotes its own interests entirely to the detriment of the other; symbiosis refers to the much less common state in which both organisms obtain some benefit from the association.Imaginary parasites of human beings are featured in many effective sf HORROR stories, often linked to the idea of vampirism (although classical vampires might better be regarded as predators than as parasites). Stories dealing with LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS often feature parasites which are exaggerated versions of earthly creatures. Those insects which lay their eggs in living hosts are popular models; they feature in A.E. VAN VOGT's "Discord in Scarlet" (1939; incorporated in The Voyage of the Space Beagle, fixup 1950) and the film ALIEN (1979) and its sequels; the closely related notion of the mother killed by her internal young appears in Philip Jose FARMER's THE LOVERS (1952; exp 1961) and Gardner DOZOIS's STRANGERS (1978). Parasites leeching the "vital energy" of human beings are commonplace; when the parasites are internal rather than external this often involves the will of the victim being usurped, thus referring metaphorically to demonic possession as well as to vampirism. Early examples of this kind of story include J. Maclaren COBBAN's Master of His Fate (1890) and Arthur Conan DOYLE's The Parasite (1895); the classic PULP-MAGAZINE sf extrapolations are Eric Frank RUSSELL's Sinister Barrier (1939; 1943; rev 1948) and Robert A. HEINLEIN's The Puppet Masters (1951). Other stories in the same vein are Russell's "Vampire from the Void" (1939), Farmer's "Strange Compulsion" (1953; vt "The Captain's Daughter"), Frank R. CRISP's The Ape of London (1959), Robert SILVERBERG's "Passengers" (1968), Colin WILSON's The Mind Parasites (1967) and The Space Vampires (1976), David CRONENBERG's film The PARASITE MURDERS (1974) and Damon KNIGHT's CV (1985).This frequent movement of the notion of parasitism from the context of the mundane to the quasisupernatural is in keeping with sf's habitual treatment of biological themes ( BIOLOGY). In concert with general trends relating to ALIENS there was a dramatic change of emphasis in post-WWII stories, in which apparently parasitic relationships are often revealed to be in fact symbiotic. Some stories are conscious ideological replies to earlier works - Ted WHITE's By Furies Possessed (1970), which attacks the implicit xenophobia of The Puppet Masters, is a notable example. The concept of symbiosis had earlier been used in some ecological puzzle stories ( ECOLOGY), notably Eric Frank Russell's "Symbiotica" (1943) and an ironic story of defensive biological warfare, "Symbiosis" (1947) by Will F. Jenkins (Murray LEINSTER), but the quasisupernatural connotations it eventually took on were decisively opposed to metaphors of vampirism and possession. It became a central notion of the "ecological mysticism" displayed in such works as Sydney J. VAN SCYOC's trilogy Daughters of the Sunstone (1982-4; omni 1985). Explicit religious imagery comes to the fore in such stories of human/alien symbiosis as Clifford D. SIMAK's Time and Again (1951; vt First He Died), Bob SHAW's Palace of Eternity (1969) and Nicholas Yermakov's trilogy begun with The Last Communion (1981). Post-WWII stories in which human and alien minds share a brain usually see such relationships as potentially symbiotic; examples include Hal CLEMENT's Needle (1950), Brian M. STABLEFORD's Halcyon Drift series (1972-5), Roger ZELAZNY's Doorways in the Sand (1976) and F. Paul WILSON's Healer (1976). Even Christopher EVANS's bleak mind-parasite story The Insider (1981) is sympathetic to the parasitic consciousness. The more ambivalent view of human/alien commensalism adopted in Octavia E. BUTLER's Clay's Ark (1984) and related works and in the first part of Dan SIMMONS's HYPERION (1989) cleverly exploits and undercuts this modern sensibility.This area of speculation is perhaps the most obvious example in sf of the utility of biological notions as metaphysical metaphors ( METAPHYSICS), and of the way that such metaphorical usage dominates the expression of biological notions in sf. [BS]See also: HIVE-MINDS; PARANOIA; SUPERNATURAL CREATURES. PARAZZOLI, FERRUCCIO [r] ITALY. PARIS QUI DORT (vt Le Rayon Invisible; vt The Crazy Ray) Film (1923). Films Diamant. Written/dir Rene Clair, starring Henri Rollan, Albert Prejean, Madeleine Rodrigue, Marcel Vallee. 61 mins. B/w.This is one of the earliest sf films (other than shorts). A scientist accidentally freezes Paris into a split-second of time with an invisible ray. Some Parisians escape, through being either on the Eiffel tower or in a plane. Most of them take advantage of the situation to break out of their social roles, have drunken parties, etc., but a young nightwatchman persuades a group to seek out the source of the problem and put it right, which they do (though at first the victims can move only in slow motion). Made with style and charm by Clair - whose first film it was - PQD retains its wit and good humour when seen today. [JB]See also: CINEMA. PARK, PAUL (CLAIBORNE) (1954- ) US writer, educated in the land of his birth, peripatetic for most of the 1980s, but resident again in the USA at about the time he began publishing sf with SOLDIERS OF PARADISE (1987), the first volume of The Starbridge Chronicles, which comprises also Sugar Rain (1989) - assembled with the first volume as The Sugar Festival (omni 1991) - and is completed with The Cult of Loving Kindness (1991). It is the sort of sequence whose composition seems possible only in the later years of a genre, when the literary atmosphere is saturated with memories of previous work and a sense of antiquity attaches naturally to some of the sf instruments used in new stories. RELIGION dominates every page of The Starbridge Chronicles, which is set, eons hence, in a dying-Earth venue where history endlessly recycles, tied to the return of the generations-long seasons of a Great Year. (PP has denied being influenced by Brian W. ALDISS's Helliconia sequence: the idea of a Great Year may be one which comes naturally to mind in the late maturity of a genre.)As in most dying-Earth tales ( FAR FUTURE), metal is now scarce, technologies of radically varying complexity co-exist, human and humanlike species intermingle, and nothing new can happen. The Great-Year cycle owes its existence to the influence of a visiting planet (PP's astronomy is, perhaps intentionally, vague on its exact nature) called Paradise, which the religion dominant during the terrible Winter conceives to be the habitat of those who have not yet died and been sent to Earth. The delineation of this faith in SOLDIERS OF PARADISE - with its bloodiness, its erotic complexities, its totalitarian control over the predestined lives of the damned, its worship of the dog-god Angkhdt, its melancholia and its strange rightness - is the major creative achievement of the sequence. In that first novel, as Winter begins to end, the Starbridge clan, which has dominated the great province whose capital is Charn, begins to panic in foreordained ways; Abu Starbridge is martyred, and will become the avatar of a Summer faith, and Thanakar Starbridge, a doctor who blasphemously heals those low in the social order, escapes a crumbling Charn with his lover. Sugar Rain deals in gravely slow terms with the meteorological and social phenomena which signal Spring, as well as continuing the Thanakar love story. The Cult of Loving Kindness, set in Summer, depicts the slow rebirth of the cult of Angkhdt. The contemplative and tocsin richness of the sequence demonstrates the continuing imaginative power of latter-day sf.Coelestis (1993 UK; rev vt Celestis 1995 US) is a singleton and reads, at first glance, like an extended vignette: a morose administrator from Earth, trapped by time dilation and a failed career on a decrepit colony planet, falls in love with a wealthy native ALIEN, who has been cosmetically modifying herself so as to resemble human stock more closely; and she falls in love with him; and the romance ends tragically, as seemed inevitable from the start. But the quietly savage density of the prose, the inexorability of the telling, and the more profound tragedy of the continuing destruction at human hands of the complex alien culture, all add again to a demonstration of late 20th century sf at its most responsible, and least conciliatory. [JC]See also: GODS AND DEMONS; PLANETARY ROMANCE. PARKER, RICHARD (1915- ) UK writer for children. His The Hendon Fungus (1968) is about fungal specimens from abroad proliferating in England, feeding on calcium, and thus crumbling buildings of stone, concrete, etc. The Old Powder Line (1971) is a fantasy featuring a train as a time machine. A Time to Choose (1973) presents two children forced to pick between double lives in ALTERNATE WORLDS, one pleasant, the other ours. [PN]Other works: M For Mischief and Spell Seven (1971), both tales of magic. PARKES, LUCAS or WYNDHAM John WYNDHAM. PARKINSON, H(AROLD) F(REDERICK) (? - ) UK writer whose sf novel, They Shall not Die (1939), describes with muted irony the effects of a MEDICINE which prevents all disease but also sterilizes those who use it: only those who remain prone to the ills of the flesh can give birth. [JC] PARNELL, FRANCIS [s] Festus PRAGNELL. PARNOV, EREMEI (IUDOVICH) (1935- ) Russian scientist and writer, almost all of whose sf of interest was published in collaboration with Mikhail EMTSEV (whom see for details). After the partnership broke up in 1970, EP published some further work, like Prosnis' V Famaguste ["Wake up in Famagusta"] (1985), which mixes Eastern mysticism and ALIEN encounters in a formula adventure plot. Some superficial sf criticism appears in Fantastika V Vek NTR ["SF in the Age of Scientific Revolution"] (1974) and Zerkalo Uranii ["The Mirror of Urania"] (1982). [VG]See also: HIVE-MINDS. PARODY SATIRE. PARRINDER, (JOHN) PATRICK (1944- ) UK academic and critic whose work in the sf field has focused primarily upon H.G. WELLS. His H.G. Wells (1970) remains the best short introduction to the work and the man, though it may now, two decades later, seem unduly dismissive about Wells's later career. H.G. Wells: The Critical Heritage (anth 1972) reflects a similar viewpoint. PP ed with Robert M. PHILMUS H.G. Wells's Literary Criticism (coll 1980). The War of the Worlds: Notes (1981 chap) is a study guide. H.G. Wells: A Comprehensive Bibliography, 4th Ed (1986 chap), with J.R. Hammond, A.H. Watkins and the H.G. Wells Society, justifies its subtitle only if periodical publications are to be ignored. H.G. Wells under Revision: Proceedings of the International H.G. Wells Symposium, London, July 1986 (anth 1990) with Christopher Rolfe reflects some of the advances in Wells studies since PP's first study, which in retrospect seems all the more prescient in the sophisticated seriousness of its approach. PP has also edited 2 critical editions for The H.G. Wells Society: Select Conversations with an Uncle (Now Extinct) ([coll 1895] 1992 chap) with David C. Smith, which includes previously uncollected material, and The Discovery of the Future ([1902] coll 1989 chap), which includes also some lesser essays.The useful Science Fiction: A Critical Guide (anth 1979) was followed by Science Fiction: Its Criticism and Teaching (1980), a clear-headed and subtle conspectus of the field from a scholarly point of view. [JC]See also: CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF; SF IN THE CLASSROOM; SCIENTISTS. PARRY, DAVID MacLEAN (1852-1915) US businessman and writer whose anti-socialist DYSTOPIA, The Scarlet Empire (1906), introduces a young US citizen to a nightmarish ATLANTIS, protected from the ocean by a great dome, in which the obsession with regimented equality leads to grotesqueries prophetic of those dreamt of by Evgeny ZAMIATIN in My (trans Gregory Zilboorg as We 1924 US). The protagonist escapes with the young woman he loves, destroying the dome - and hence the entire society - as he leaves. [JC] PARSEC The official SI unit of astronomical distance; the name is a contraction of "parallax-second". The measure was introduced by UK astronomer Herbert Hall Towner (1861-1930). As the Earth travels from one side of the Sun to the other in half a year, parallax makes the position of any comparatively nearby star apparently shift. Using simple trigonometry, from the observed angular displacement of the star's measured position and knowledge of the distance between Earth and Sun the distance of the star can be calculated. One parsec is defined (essentially) as the distance at which a star would show a parallax displacement of 1 second of arc, a distance which proves to be approximately 3.258 light years.The term "parsec" is a common item of sf TERMINOLOGY, either correctly as a unit of distance or, depressingly often - especially in PULP-MAGAZINE, juvenile and cinematic sf - mistakenly as a unit of velocity ("We're moving at 17 parsecs!" the hero of SPACE 1999 might cry) or of time ("I made the run in less than four parsecs," says Harrison Ford in STAR WARS). [PN]See also: SCIENTIFIC ERRORS. PARTINGTON, CHARLES [r] NEW WORLDS; SOMETHING ELSE. PASSES, ALAN Working name of UK writer, translator and film technician Alan Pazolski (1943- ), who also signs himself Alan Passes-Pazolski. His first sf story was "Spoor" for NW in 1969, and he has written two sf plays, "Mystic of the Western World", produced 1976, and "Death Raise", produced 1977. His epic novel Big Step (1977) mixes sf material with MYTHOLOGY in the experimentally couched story of the adventures on Earth of an interstellar Angel of Death who seeks to punish a fugitive Nazi. [JC] PASSING SHOW, THE UK large-format (14" x 10" [36cm x 26cm]) weekly magazine, 26 Mar 1932-25 Feb 1939. It featured articles, short stories, serials and cartoons. Beginning with the serializations of Pirates of Venus (1933; 1934) and Lost on Venus (1933-4; 1935) by Edgar Rice BURROUGHS (both reprinted from The ARGOSY ), TPS became the UK's most regular periodical source of sf in the 1930s, remaining so until TALES OF WONDER and FANTASY started up. Several short fantasy stories by Lord DUNSANY and others and a series of articles by Ray CUMMINGS, The World of Tomorrow (1936), appeared in TPS over the next 5 years together with 11 other serials, notably Warwick DEEPING's "The Madness of Professor Pye" (1934), Edwin BALMER's and Philip WYLIE's When Worlds Collide (1934-5; being a reprint of When Worlds Collide [1933] and After Worlds Collide [1934]), Wynant Davis Hubbard's The Thousandth Frog (1935; 1935), John Beynon's ( John WYNDHAM) Planet Plane (1936 as "Stowaway to Mars"; 1936; vt cut as "The Space Machine", 1937 Modern Wonder; rev vt Stowaway to Mars 1953) and The Secret People (1935; 1935), and W. Douglas NEWTON's "The Devil Comes Aboard" (1938; vt Savaran and the Great Sand 1939).TPS later became The Illustrated and focused its attention on WWII, though sf still made an occasional appearance. [JE] PASTORAL The term "pastoral" can be understood in various ways. It can refer to the Classical or Shakespearean tale of courtiers holidaying among nymphs and shepherds; it can refer, as Sir William Empson (1906-1984) and other modern critics have argued, to the proletarian novel or to the story which contrasts childhood innocence with adult experience. In essence, however, a pastoral is any work of fiction which depicts an apparently simple and natural way of life, and contrasts it with our complex, technological, anxiety-ridden urban world of the present. Pastorals can be full of moral earnestness or they can be utterly escapist.Of the many versions of pastoral in sf, the most obvious is the tale of country life as written by Clifford D. SIMAK, Zenna HENDERSON and others. Such stories usually involve the intrusion of ALIEN beings (frequently telepathic) into rural landscapes peopled by farmers and small-town tradesmen. Examples are Simak's "Neighbor" (1954), "A Death in the House" (1959), WAY STATION (1963), All Flesh is Grass (1965) and A Choice of Gods (1972), and Henderson's PILGRIMAGE: THE BOOK OF THE PEOPLE (fixup 1961) and The Anything Box (coll 1965). Fantasies in a kindred mode include Ray BRADBURY's Dandelion Wine (fixup 1957), Ward MOORE's and Avram DAVIDSON's Joyleg (1962) and Manly Wade WELLMAN's Who Fears the Devil? (coll of linked stories 1963). What these works have in common is an emphasis on the virtues (and sometimes the constraints) of the rural way of life. They are, explicitly or implicitly, anti-city and anti- MACHINE; they frequently extol the values of living close to Nature, of being in rhythm with the seasons. This bucolic and Luddite strain in GENRE SF has its origins in some major works of US literature such as Walden (1854) by Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) and Winesburg, Ohio (1919) by Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941), as well as in such UK UTOPIAS and romances as Richard JEFFERIES's After London (1885), with its vision of the city reconquered by forest and field, W.H. HUDSON's A Crystal Age (1887) and William MORRIS's News from Nowhere (1890 US).A variant form of this version of pastoral is that in which the contrast between city and country is made quite explicit. Stories of this type, discussed more fully in the entry on CITIES, have a long history, going back beyond After London. In this variant urban life is depicted as cruel, oppressive or sterile, while the country represents freedom; the genre-sf archetype is Arthur C. CLARKE's The City and the Stars (1956). It is a particularly popular theme in CHILDREN'S SF, as in John CHRISTOPHER's Wild Jack (1974) and Isobelle CARMODY's Scatterlings (1991).A second version of pastoral, again taking its cue from Jefferies and Morris, is exemplified by George R. STEWART's Earth Abides (1949) and Leigh BRACKETT's The Long Tomorrow (1955), both tales depicting the rise of agricultural and anti-technological societies after some sort of HOLOCAUST. Although this type of story is set in the future, the future becomes a clear analogue of the pre-industrial past. A particularly fine example is Fredric BROWN's "The Waveries" (1945), a tale in which the modern USA is forced back into a horse-and-buggy economy by invading aliens who prevent the use of electricity. Other examples of this kind of story are Pat FRANK's Alas, Babylon (1959) and Edgar PANGBORN's DAVY (1964). This sort of pastoral is not always simple; the pastoral post-holocaust world can itself be seen with a little irony, as in John CROWLEY's ENGINE SUMMER (1979), which is suffused by an elegiac melancholy. (Another ambiguous pastoral, not really sf, is Crowley's Little, Big [1981], where the ultimate pastoral values of Faerie are teasingly impossible to reach and, if reached, might mean death.)A third version of sf pastoral is the story set on another world, often Edenic or, at the least, satisfying. Such works usually depict benign alien ECOLOGIES which support nontechnological societies. Humanity is often seen as a destructive intruder upon these planets, although frequently the protagonist is "accepted" because he or she is capable of seeing the wisdom of the alien ways. The ideological thrust of such stories is anti-anthropomorphic and anti-xenophobic. Examples are Robert A. HEINLEIN's Red Planet (1949) - and, by implication, his STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND (1961) - Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles (fixup 1950), Mark CLIFTON's Eight Keys to Eden (1960), H. Beam PIPER's Little Fuzzy (1962), Robert SILVERBERG's Downward to the Earth (1970) and The Face of the Waters (1991), Lloyd BIGGLE Jr's Monument (1974), Cherry WILDER's Second Nature (1982), Joan SLONCZEWSKI's A Door into Ocean (1986) and Judith MOFFETT's Pennterra (1987). Ursula K. LE GUIN's The Word for World is Forest (1976) is an outstanding treatment of this theme, the sourness of the narrative reflecting the realities of the Vietnam War. Brian M. STABLEFORD's The Paradise Game (1974) and Critical Threshold (1976) are clever variations; both are about planets which are apparently Edenic but which turn out to be rather more sinister. This is also the case in Ian WATSON's "The Moon and Michelangelo" (1987), in which a pastoral alien society has been wholly misunderstood but offers a form of ironic transcendence nevertheless. Richard MCKENNA's "Hunter, Come Home" (1963) and John VARLEY's "In the Hall of the Martian Kings" (1977) are both good treatments of the ultimate in benign ecologies: bio-systems that enfold and preserve the sympathetic human characters against all dangers.The fourth version of sf pastoral is perhaps the commonest: the escapist adventure story set in a simpler world, whether it be the future, the past, another planet or in another continuum. If the portrayal of "Nature" is an essential element in all pastorals, then this is the version of them that prefers its Nature red in tooth and claw. Edgar Rice BURROUGHS's Tarzan of the Apes (1914) belongs here, as do his A Princess of Mars (1912; 1917), At the Earth's Core (1914; 1922) and all their various sequels. Tarzan is an archetypal 20th-century pastoral hero; his freedom of action, affinity with animals and innocent capacity for violence represent an amalgam of daydreams, Rousseau married to Darwin. One could go further and say that the whole subgenre of SWORD AND SORCERY is in a sense pastoral. As urbanization increases and free space diminishes on the Earth's surface, so the pastoral dream of simpler worlds in harmony with (or in enjoyable conflict with) Nature becomes ever more compelling.In the 1980s (there are earlier examples) pastoral themes were used by a number of WOMEN WRITERS OF SF to image the values of FEMINISM, as in Slonczewski's A Door into Ocean. The prime example here, though, is Le Guin's Always Coming Home (1985), an extraordinarily rich and dense exercise in speculative ANTHROPOLOGY, largely set in a post-holocaust pastoral culture whose values are the values of women. A cruder exercise in the same vein is Sally Miller GEARHART's The Wanderground: Stories of the Hill Women (coll of linked stories 1980), in which the women's society's embrace of Nature and the men's society's despisal of it are both so diagrammatic as to approach caricature. Sheri S. TEPPER achieves the balance in Raising the Stones (1990), with plenty of melodrama but also with plenty of real life, when she contrasts two agricultural societies on two planets, the one society patriarchal and brutal, the other deriving its strength from the realism (and, in the main, the kindliness) of women, a confrontation between the bad pastoral and the good.Pastoral has always been an attractive theme, but its simpler pleasures can pall after a time. The most interesting uses of pastoral in sf, many of which are cited above, are those in which the pastoral values have their cost, or in which the urban/pastoral or civilized/primitive oppositions are seen with some sort of irony - that is, with the recognition that life is not always as neatly dualistic as we would sometimes wish. Some of the poignant qualities of Hilbert SCHENCK's At the Eye of the Ocean (1980) and A ROSE FOR ARMAGEDDON (1982), pastorals whose pastures are the field of ocean, derive from this recognition. Behind the greatest pastorals is often a sense of loss, for Nature herself often throws up images of decline and decay as well as of growth and harvest, and to invoke Nature is to invoke a world whose benisons are ephemeral (although they will always return). This may be why some of the finest pastorals are seasonal or cyclical; Brian W. ALDISS's Helliconia trilogy (1982-5) is many other things as well, but at root it is a pastoral whose burden is that Winter always comes. [DP/PN]See also: CHILDREN IN SF; ISLANDS; LIVING WORLDS. 'PATAPHYSICS IMAGINARY SCIENCE; Alfred JARRY. PATCHETT, M(ARY OSBORNE) E(LWYN) (1897- ) Australian writer, long resident in the UK, whose competent CHILDREN'S SF novels are Kidnappers of Space (1953; vt Space Captives of the Golden Men 1953 US), Adam Troy, Astroman (1954), which deals with the consequences for Earth of colliding with a giant asteroid, Lost on Venus (1954; vt Flight to the Misty Planet 1954 US), Send for Johnny Danger (1956), The Venus Project (1963), Ajax and the Haunted Mountain (1963) and Farm Beneath the Sea (1969). Her writing is alert, uncondescending, sensitive to animal life and information-full. [JC] PATON, FRANK [s] Raymond A. PALMER. PATON, JOHN [r] ROBERT HALE LIMITED. PATRICK Oscar ROSSITER. PAUL, BARBARA (JEANNE) (1931- ) US writer who began publishing sf with "Answer 'Affirmative' or 'Negative' "forASF in 1972, but who has become much better known in the 1980s for her detective novels, of which she has written at least 13; one of them, Liars and Tyrants and People who Turn Blue (1980), depends for its plot upon a psychic character. Earlier BP wrote several sf novels - An Exercise for Madmen (1978), Pillars of Salt (1979), Bibblings (1979) and Under the Canopy (1980) - which feature women protagonists, through whom an unprogrammatic FEMINISM is pursued as they find themselves coping with sf-adventure situations. Pillars of Salt, for instance, is a TIME-TRAVEL tale which confronts its 21st-century protagonist with the challenge of becoming Queen Elizabeth I of England. A later novel, The Three-Minute Universe * (1988), is a Star Trek tie ( STAR TREK).BP should not be confused with the Barbara Paul who wrote The Curse of Halewood (1976; vt Devil's Fire, Love's Revenge 1976 US); this was the pseudonym of Barbara Kathleen Ovstedal (1925- ). [JC] PAUL, FRANK R(UDOLPH) (1884-1963) Austrian-born US illustrator. FRP is the best candidate for "Father of Modern SF ILLUSTRATION", at least in the form it took in the PULP MAGAZINES. He received much of his education in Vienna, and studied also in Paris and New York. Trained as an architect, he was discovered by Hugo GERNSBACK in 1914 while working for a rural newspaper. Their names have been virtually inseparable ever since the days of The Electrical Experimenter ( SCIENCE AND INVENTION). For #1 of AMAZING STORIES in Apr 1926 FRP not only painted the cover illustration but did all the interior black-and-white artwork as well, and continued to do both until Gernsback lost control of the magazine in 1929. When Gernsback started publishing again later that year, FRP was once more his primary illustrator, on SCIENCE WONDER STORIES, AIR WONDER STORIES and then WONDER STORIES; indeed, his association with Gernsback lasted until the short-lived Science Fiction Plus in 1953; he painted more than 150 covers for Gernsback in all. He worked elsewhere, too, with a further 28 front covers for various non-Gernsback SF MAGAZINES, including all 12 for Charles D. HORNIG's SCIENCE FICTION, and also a series of full colour back-cover paintings for the ZIFF-DAVIS Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures (1939-46). He also did all the illustration for Superworld Comics, a Gernsback experiment of 1939.FRP's style shows his architectural training; his CITIES and TECHNOLOGY are lovingly detailed, his ALIENS well thought out and plausible, but his human figures stiff and simplistic. His colours were bright (almost garish, even for the period) and flat, and he liked pure reds and yellows, particularly as backgrounds (though this was partly due to Gernsback's meanness in using three- rather than four-colour printing). It seems odd to associate primitive art with sf, but FRP was in his technological way, just as much a primitive as Grandma Moses (1860-1961) and, like her, had an authentic naive poetry to his work. The brightness of colour throughout the PULP-MAGAZINE era of sf was a direct result of FRP's influence. FRP was guest of honour at the first World SF CONVENTION in 1939. [JG/PN]See also: SPACESHIPS. PAYN, JAMES (1830-1898) UK writer and editor whose 100+ books cover a wide variety of genres, his sf being comparatively inconspicuous. The Cruise of the Anti-Torpedo (1871 chap) is a typical future- WAR tale, one of many written in direct response to George T. CHESNEY's The Battle of Dorking (1871 chap); along with the comic "The Fatal Curiosity, or A Hundred Years Hence" (1877) it was included in High Spirits: Being Certain Stories Written in Them (coll 1879). The Eavesdropper: An Unparalleled Experiment (1888) is an INVISIBILITY tale whose protagonist, after taking the requisite potion, discovers the truth about his friends and servants and returns to the normal world sadder and wiser. [JC] PAYNE, (PIERRE STEPHEN) ROBERT (1911-1983) UK-born writer, much travelled, who spent his final years in the USA. Immensely prolific under a variety of names - including Richard Cargoe, John Anthony Devon, Howard Horne and Valentin Tikhonov - he wrote little fantasy or sf. The War in the Marshes (1938) as by Robert Young is an allegorical adventure rather in the mode of Rex WARNER. The Deluge (1954), which pretends to be based on notes left by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), is sf. [JC] PEABODY, JOEL R. [r] JUPITER; SUN. PEACE GAME, THE GLADIATORERNA. PEAKE, MERVYN (LAURENCE) (1911-1968) UK writer and artist, born in China, where he lived until he was 12 in a missionary compound, embedded into a land as strange as the country surrounding Gormenghast. He was initially better regarded as an artist than as a writer and, although he had written some poetry before the end of WWII, the publication of Titus Groan (1946) showed an unexpected side to his genius. Gormenghast (1950) is closely linked to that first volume, but it is clear that MP never intended to compose a trilogy per se; Titus Alone (cut 1959; reconstructed from manuscript by Langdon JONES 1970) - a text the author was unable to take beyond draft form due to the onset of the disease which killed him - ends at a point that MP did not intend as a definitive terminus. This sense of the shape of the sequence is confirmed by the 1991 critical edition of the 3 novels, in which Titus Alone (as coll 1991 US) ed G. Peter Winnington includes the surviving pages of "Titus Awakes", the incomplete 4th volume of the sequence. But, although the existing trilogy-variously identified as the Gormenghast or Titus Groan sequence, and on one occasion assembled as The Titus Books (omni 1983; vt The Gormenghast Trilogy 1991 US) - was never in its author's mind a complete entity, it remains a series of texts whose power is remarkable, and the definition of which in generic terms is loaded with difficulties. Although couched in a language which might point towards FANTASY, it contains no fantasy elements; though redolent of a dying-Earth ( FAR FUTURE) venue in its sense of belatedness and in the person of Titus's father - a fidgety, crotchet-ridden, ENTROPY-exuding manic-depressive aristocrat whose like has haunted the dying-Earth habitats of writers from M. John HARRISON to Richard GRANT - the first 2 volumes cannot be thought of as sf. The sequence is perhaps best thought of as being sui generis.Told in an elaborated, densely pictorial language, the story of Titus's birth and childhood in Gormenghast Castle is fundamentally the story of a coming-of-age: it is a genuine Bildungsroman, the story of the growth of a soul. At the same time, great stretches of the sequence ignore the priggish, bland young Titus entirely to concentrate upon the vividly realized cast of grotesques which surrounds him. In Titus Groan itself, one of the most intensely painterly books ever crafted, the infant protagonist is surrounded by a dwelling so intricate and dense (MP derived something of its scale from Sark, in the Channel Islands) that he never becomes more than an occasional raised figurine in the Gormenghast geography. Gormenghast is essentially devoted to the Realpolitik rise and inevitable fall of the modern-minded Steerpike. Only Titus Alone concentrates on the hero, now self-exiled from his childhood and his great demesne, as he hurtles through a futuristic, jaggedly conceived DYSTOPIAN world; at the end, about to return home, he turns his back on all his memories, and the sequence stops short, dangling. Throughout, the wealth of detail of the work makes Gormenghast one of the most richly realized ALTERNATE WORLDS in all the literature of fantasy or sf.MP contributed to Sometime, Never (anth 1956) a short story about Titus, Boy in Darkness (1956; 1976 chap). Mr Pye (1953) is an excellent whimsical fantasy, set largely on Sark, about a man whose goodness is so profound that he sprouts angel's wings, and about his desperate attempts to get rid of them. But the huge fragments of Titus Groan remain central. [JC]Other works: Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor (1939 chap), for children; Letters from a Lost Uncle (1948), for children; Mervyn Peake: Writings and Drawings (anth 1974) ed Maeve Gilmore, MP's widow, and Shelagh Johnson.About the author: A World Away: A Memoir (1970) by Maeve Gilmore; Mervyn Peake (1974) by John Batchelor; Mervyn Peake (1976) by John Watney; Peake's Progress (coll 1978; rev 1981) ed Maeve Gilmore. A journal, Peake Studies, ed G. Peter Winnington, was instituted in 1988 and continues. PEARCE, BRENDA (1935- ) UK writer who began publishing sf with "Hot Spot" for ASF in 1974. Kidnapped into Space (1975) and Worlds for the Grabbing (1977) are both routine but enjoyable adventures in which her interest in technical and technological matters sometimes shows through to advantage. PEARCE, PHILIPPA [r] CHILDREN'S SF. PEARSON, C.A., LTD PEARSON'S MAGAZINE; PEARSON'S WEEKLY; SCOOPS. PEARSON, MARTIN Pseudonym used once by Donald A. WOLLHEIM alone, and also for "The Embassy" (1942 ASF), which he wrote with C.M. KORNBLUTH. [PN] PEARSONS PEARSON'S MAGAZINE; PEARSON'S WEEKLY; SCOOPS. PEARSON'S MAGAZINE UK magazine published by C.A. Pearson Ltd, ed Sir Arthur Pearson and others. Monthly, Jan 1896-Nov 1939.PM was a popular fact and fiction magazine which, following the trend set by its companion paper PEARSON'S WEEKLY, published sf by George GRIFFITH, H.G. WELLS, F.M. WHITE, C.J. Cutcliffe HYNE and others on a regular basis for several years, becoming the STRAND MAGAZINE's keenest competitor. It is best remembered for the serializations of Wells's THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (1897; 1898) and The Food of the Gods (1903-04; 1904) and of George Griffith's A Honeymoon in Space (1900 as "Stories of Other Worlds"; fixup 1901) and the sf illustrations of Fred T. JANE and Warwick Goble. Sf continued intermittently into the 1930s, sometimes originally, as with John Raphael's weird sf novel Up Above (1912; 1913), and sometimes with reprints, as with Douglas NEWTON's "Sunken Cities" (1923) from MUNSEY'S MAGAZINE.A US edition appeared Mar 1899-Apr 1925 with substantially different contents. In particular it serialized H.G. Wells's War in the Air (1908; 1908) a month or two after the original publication in Pall Mall Magazine. [JE]Further reading: Science Fiction by Gaslight: A History and Anthology of Science Fiction in the Popular Magazines 1891-1911 (1968) by Sam MOSKOWITZ. PEARSON'S WEEKLY UK 16pp tabloid magazine published by C.A. Pearson Ltd; ed Peter Keary and others. Weekly, 26 July 1890-1 Apr 1939. Retitled The New Pearson and Today from 17 Sep 1938, and The New Pearson's Weekly from 26 Nov 1938. Incorporated into Tit-Bits from 8 Apr 1939.PW popularized sf in Victorian magazines with the publication of George GRIFFITH's The Angel of the Revolution (1893; cut 1893), following it with other serials by Griffith, H. Rider HAGGARD, Louis TRACY and M.P. SHIEL, and also H.G. WELLS's The Invisible Man (1897; rev 1897). Many short sf stories appeared during this period, with further stories appearing sporadically into the 1930s. [JE] PEASE, Lt JOHN [s] Ralph Milne FARLEY. PECK, RICHARD E(ARL) (1936- ) US writer and academic, professor of English at Temple University, Philadelphia, and an active critic of both literature in general and sf in particular. He began publishing sf with "In Alien Waters" for Venture in 1969. His sf novel, Final Solution (1973), is an amusing but grim tale in which a US academic is sent 50 years into the future (through CRYONICS) to find universities and CITIES merged into a hideous conglomerate and sealed off, with Middle America living comfortably outside.REP is not to be confused with Richard (Wayne) Peck (1934- ), author of the Blossom Culp series of children's fantasies. [JC/PN] PEDLER, KIT Working name of UK writer and scientist Christopher Magnus Howard Pedler (1927-1981). He was a medical doctor, practising from 1953 for about three years, after which he began the research into the experimental pathology of eye disease that resulted in a second doctorate. In 1970 KP and Gerry DAVIS devised the BBC TV series DOOMWATCH, which ran to 37 episodes, many written by KP and Davis, and most dealing in sf terms with the prevention of manmade threats to this fragile planet. KP's first sf novel, Mutant 59: The Plastic-Eater (1971) with Davis, featured a Doomwatch-type scenario (indeed, the basic plot had been used as a Doomwatch episode) in which a laboratory-created plastic-eating virus escapes, creating havoc as plastics start dissolving. The working out of the notion is less than crisp. POLLUTION and ECOLOGY themes recurred in the next two collaborations, Brainrack (1974) and The Dynostar Menace (1975), neither being wholly satisfactory. KP's scientific ideas were stronger than the methods he used to dramatize them. He made many tv and radio appearances, usually dealing with ecological problems, and presented several tv films in this field. [JC/PN]See also: DISASTER; GENETIC ENGINEERING; PSEUDO-SCIENCE. PEEL, JESSE [s] Steve PERRY. PEIRCE, HAYFORD (1942- ) US writer who began publishing sf with "Unlimited Warfare" for ASF in 1974 and who established a name for lightly written tales whose backgrounds were unusually well conceived. "Mail Supremacy" (1975) began a series - which has not reached book form - in which an Anglo-Chinese businessman brings Earth into the Galactic Postal Union. Napoleon Disentimed (1987; exp 1989 UK), his first novel, is an attractive example of what might be called the ALTERNATE-WORLDS hijinks tale: cast into a 1992 ruled by the French Empire, a confidence trickster attempts to upset the applecart. The Thirteenth Majestral (1989) - HP's titles are notably inventive - is a TIME-TRAVEL tale set in the far future and disregardful of the pretensions of established religion. Phylum Monsters (1989) deals amusedly with GENETIC ENGINEERING. [JC] PEKIC, BORISLAV [r] YUGOSLAVIA. PELKIE, J.W. [s] Raymond A. PALMER. PELLUME, NOAM D. [s] Orson Scott CARD. PEMBERTON, [Sir] MAX (1863-1950) UK writer, educated at Caius College, Cambridge, the first editor of Chums 1892-3, editor of Cassell's Magazine 1896-1906, and later a director of Northcliffe Newspapers; he was knighted in 1928. Of more than 60 novels, his most famous is a Jules VERNE-style piece of CHILDREN'S SF: in the much-reprinted The Iron Pirate: A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea (1893; vt The Shadow on the Sea 1907) and its sequel Captain Black (1911) an advanced submarine is used for piracy. Equally popular in its day was his novel of attempted future WAR, Pro Patria (1901), in which a Channel tunnel is excavated by the French for a planned INVASION of the UK. France is again the unsuccessful antagonist in The Giant's Gate (1901), this time using advanced submarines to bypass the UK's defence systems. Another theme prominent in MP's writing is of secret communities established either for scientific reasons, as in The Impregnable City (1895) and The House under the Sea (1902), or for UTOPIAN, as in White Walls (1910). [JE]Other works: Queen of the Jesters (1897); The Phantom Army (1898); Dr Xavier (1903); The Diamond Ship (1906).About the author: Sixty Years Ago and After (1936), an autobiography.See also: HISTORY OF SF; SPACESHIPS; UNDER THE SEA. PEMBERTON, RENFREW [s] F.M. BUSBY. PENA, ALFREDO CARDONA [r] LATIN AMERICA. PENAL COLONY NO ESCAPE. PENALURICK, JAN [s] Charles DE LINT. PENDLETON, DON(ALD EUGENE) (1927- ) US writer who began with "Boomerang Peep Show" for Ace Magazine in 1958 and whose sf novels - some written as by Dan Britain, and most of them routine - began with Revolt! (1968 as by Britain; rev vt Civil War II: The Day it Finally Happened! 1971 as DP) and The Olympians (1969), both soft porn. Other singletons were Cataclysm: The Day the World Died (1969), The Guns of Terra 10 (1970), The Godmakers (1970 as by Britain; 1974 as DP) and 1989: Population Doomsday (1970; vt Population Doomsday 1974). Also of some sf interest are the Asthon Ford psychic spy tales: Ashes to Ashes (1986), Eye to Eye (1986), Mind to Mind (1987), Life to Life (1987), Heart to Heart (1987) and Time to Time (1988).DP wrote the first 27 vols of the Mack Bolan or Executioner series for Gold Eagle Books, which thereafter adopted "Don Pendleton" as a house name; among the authors who wrote under it was Peter LESLIE. Of sf interest in that series is Mack Bolan: Paradine's Gauntlet * (1983) by Michael Newton (1951- ) as Pendleton. [JC] PENDRAY, (GEORGE) EDWARD (1901-1987) US writer and rocket scientist, a founding member of The American Interplanetary Society, and author of The Coming Age of Rocket Power (1945); he was also involved in the Time Capsule featured at the 1939 New York World's Fair. As Gawain Edwards he published some stories in sf magazines in the 1920s and 1930s and a future- WAR novel, The Earth-Tube (1929), in which Asians take advantage of their possession of the invulnerable metal undulal to tunnel under South America, which they soon conquer. After a young hero has penetrated the secret, catastophic explosions close the tunnel, inundating South America but sparing the USA, which has transformed itself into a socialist regime in response to the free gold which the Asians have been raining from the skies in an effort to destabilize the great capitalist democracy. [JC] PENNINGTON, BRUCE (1944- ) UK illustrator. One of the young sf artists to gain prominence in the 1970s, BP entered the field in 1967 with a cover for Robert A. HEINLEIN's STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND (1961), though at the time he worked primarily on covers for Westerns and historical novels. Since then he has done sf covers for New English Library, BALLANTINE BOOKS, Corgi and Sphere among others; he was also associated with SCIENCE FICTION MONTHLY. His painting is textured, with brush-strokes showing and strong colour, often featuring surreal landscapes; it is distinctive, vigorous work, but has been criticized for crudeness, maybe because of its contrast with the smooth, airbrushed superrealism that was coming into vogue in the UK at that time. Three books are Eschatus (1977), containing fantasy paintings illustrating the prophecies of Nostradamus,Ultraterranium: The Paintings of Bruce Pennington (1991) and The Bruce Pennington Portfolio (1991). [JG/PN]See also: BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION AWARD. PENNY, DAVID G(EORGE) [r] ROBERT HALE LIMITED. [JC] PENRICE, ARTHUR (? -? ) Unidentified UK writer; according to Darko SUVIN almost certainly a pseudonym. AP's Skyward and Earthward (1875) features an interplanetary BALLOON aboard which the narrator visits the telepaths who live on Mars before returning to Earth to engage in further exploits. [JC] PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT, THE Film (1977). Amicus. Dir Kevin Connor, starring Patrick Wayne, Sarah Douglas, Dana Gillespie, Thorley Walters, Doug McClure. Screenplay Patrick TILLEY, Connor Carter, Maurice Carter, based on The Land that Time Forgot (fixup 1924) by Edgar Rice BURROUGHS. 90 mins. Colour.After the mild success of The LAND THAT TIME FORGOT (1975) and AT THE EARTH'S CORE (1976), made by the same company, a third Burroughs LOST-WORLD adaptation was inevitable, but Tilley's screenplay lacked the tautness and the mild ironies of that by James CAWTHORN and Michael MOORCOCK for The Land that Time Forgot. This time around the MONSTERS are perfunctory, and the added feminist subplot ends up as more notably male chauvinist than the Burroughs original. [PN] PER ASPERA AD ASTRA CHEREZ TERNII - K ZVYOZDAM. PERCEPTION The ways in which we become aware of and receive information about the outside world, mainly through the senses, are together called perception. Philosophers are deeply divided as to whether our perceptions of the outside world correspond to an actual reality, or whether they are merely hypotheses, intellectual constructs, which may give us an unreliable or partial picture of external reality, or whether, indeed, outside reality is itself a mental construct.Perception is and always has been a principal theme of sf; it is the philosophical linchpin of many stories and has played a subsidiary role in hundreds more. (Many perception stories are discussed, from a different perspective, under PSYCHOLOGY.) For convenience, we can divide sf perception stories into 5 groups: stories about unusual modes of perception; stories about appearance and reality; stories about perception altered through drugs; stories about synaesthesia; stories about altered perception of time. The groups are not mutually exclusive, and several stories fall into more than one category.Unusual modes of perception appear early in sf. R.H. HORNE's The Poor Artist (1871), which is partly devoted to the way the world would appear as perceived through the senses of animals, was the first book ever to be described as "science fiction" (by his contemporary William WILSON). Edwin A. ABBOTT's Flatland (1884) is an exercise in how beings from a one- or two-dimensional universe would perceive reality, and about how we would perceive a fourth DIMENSION. J.H. ROSNY aine's "Un autre monde" (1895; trans as "Another World" 1962) tells of a MUTANT with a very fast metabolism who can see colours beyond violet (and new life forms) invisible to ordinary humans. David LINDSAY developed a similar idea in A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS (1920), in which the protagonist, mysteriously transported to another planet, keeps forming and then losing new organs of perception whose functions run from seeing additional colours to sensing emotions to intensifying the will.Many sf writers have followed Rosny's lead in imagining modes of perception which allow the direct sensing of ALTERNATE WORLDS or other dimensions, often through ESP (see also PSI POWERS). (It is probably more accurate to suppose that the idea was popularized by an H.G. WELLS story of the same year, "The Story of Davidson's Eyes" [1895], though Rosny's story is superior as sf.) A.E. VAN VOGT's melodramatic Siege of the Unseen (1946 as "The Chronicler"; 1959; vt as title story in The Three Eyes of Evil coll 1973 UK) has a hero with a third eye which allows him to perceive and then travel into another dimension. In Richard MCKENNA's "The Secret Place" (1966) no special organ is required; a world of the distant geological past is perceived direct by the mind of the heroine. Nearly all McKenna's work involves the perception and/or construction of alternate realities. Another of his stories, "Hunter, Come Home" (1963) involves an alien lifeform that perceives by instant molecular analysis - which is not too far removed from our own sense of smell - an example of the strange modes of perception which appear in many of the stories described in the entry on ALIENS. James TIPTREE Jr often used perception themes, notably in the almost surreal "Painwise" (1971), in which a human explorer, surgically modified to feel no pain, takes up with a crew of hedonistic aliens fixated on taste sensations; pain is rediscovered. Several of Ian WATSON's novels have dealt more seriously with perception, as in The Jonah Kit (1975), where the perceptions of a whale are mediated through (and modified by) a human intelligence, and The Martian Inca (1977), where the perceptions of two South American Indians are changed by the accidental intake of a Martian organism, so that their model of the world becomes very much more complex. Watson here, as elsewhere, touches on the relation between external reality and the way that reality is perceived and modified by mental programmes in the observer. These are questions that emerge regularly in the second category, stories of appearance and reality.Appearance and reality is one of the fundamental themes of sf. It has as much to do with METAPHYSICS and CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH as with perception per se (and so is discussed, from rather a different perspective, in those two entries also; relevant stories treated in more detail in the latter are "The Yellow Pill" [1958] by Rog PHILLIPS and Counterfeit World [1964 UK; vt Simulacron-3 US] by Daniel GALOUYE). The difficulty in perceiving the difference between the real and the illusory is a central theme in ABSURDIST SF and in FABULATION, as it is in surrealist literature generally; it comes up often in the stories of Josephine SAXTON and is the subject of Angela CARTER's The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972; vt The War of Dreams USA) and Salman RUSHDIE's Grimus (1975). All three writers regularly use the quest format, life being seen as a journey through baffling illusions, the desired end being understanding. Ed BRYANT's Cinnabar (coll of linked stories 1976) is set around an enigmatic city where desires can be made flesh in various ways, and where reality itself is ever dissolving from one form to another; always changing and diverse, its one unchanging quality appears to be the evanescence of external reality. In James MORROW's The Continent of Lies (1984) "dreambeans" (which grow on genetically engineered trees) are used to dissolve, temporarily, the boundaries between appearance and reality; the hero is a dreambean reviewer.Richard COWPER has written that "one single theme which intrigues me above all others is the nature of human perception". Where van Vogt's ESP breakthroughs into other realms of perception tend to be brutally direct and melodramatic, Cowper has approached the subject more obliquely and sensitively; a kind of further reality, not explicable in everyday terms, makes itself known to several of his characters in dreams, intimations - glimpses caught, as it were, out of the corner of the eye. Cowper clearly believes that our everyday reality is only partial, and has expertly evoked a kind of quivering, tense broadening of perception, especially in Breakthrough (1967) and The Twilight of Briareus (1974). Sf stories commonly dwell on the strangeness of such experiences, and the protagonist's feeling that he might be going mad. Another example is Arthur SELLINGS's The Uncensored Man (1964), in which drugs are used to increase receptivity, a theme we will examine further below.Several sf stories have combined ideas from MATHEMATICS (strange topologies and geometries) with stories of perception. Arthur C. CLARKE's "The Wall of Darkness" (1949) describes how it feels to live in a world which is a three-dimensional analogue of a moebius strip; it is all inside and no outside. Ted Chiang's "Tower of Babylon" (1990), in which M. C. Escher (1902-1972) seems to be an unacknowledged collaborator, has its archaic people building a tower from Earth to Heaven, from which perceptions of Earth's nature evolve the higher one climbs until, in a perceptual loop, the top turns out to be the bottom. R.A. LAFFERTY's "Narrow Valley" (1966) is quite remarkably bigger on the inside than it is on the outside - like DR WHO's Tardis - and the perceptions of the observers are driven to the brink of insanity. John CROWLEY uses a similar but much more developed version of the theme in Little, Big (1981), more fantasy than sf, in which the land of Faerie is described as having the characteristic that the further in you go the bigger it gets. Christopher PRIEST's INVERTED WORLD (1974) is a fascinating story of perceptual paradox in two respects; first, the progressive spatial distortion that takes place north and south of a shifting zone of stability on the hyperboloid planet; second, the revelation that the planet may in fact be our own Earth, viewed by a group whose perceptions have created a model of its shape which inverts the spheroid to a hyperboloid, and who cannot escape their own intellectual construct. Such stories approach genuine philosophical questions, though these are evoked in sf more commonly than they are actively explored; but even in such cases as Priest's novel (and most like it), where the scientific and philosophical argument is not really rigorous, there is a compulsive, teasing quality about the central image that amply compensates.Stanislaw LEM has several times written about the difficulties of transcending our perceptions. SOLARIS (1961; trans 1970) asks the pessimistic philosophical question: "Can we ever regard reality as knowable, given the limitations of the senses with which we apprehend it and the mental programmes which force us to relate our understanding of it always to human experience?" Barry N. MALZBERG is also intrigued with this area of speculation and pessimistic. Beyond Apollo (1972) has an astronaut returning from a disastrous expedition to Venus; he tells the story of what went wrong over and over again, always differently, but it seems that the real tragedy cannot be put in terms of his human perceptions, and all his analogies can give only a partial truth. This theme, of course, is as familiar outside sf as it is inside, though sf has remarkable resources of image and metaphor with which to explore it.The two sf writers who have played the most extravagant and kaleidoscopic variations on the theme of appearance and reality are J.G. BALLARD and Philip K. DICK. Almost all of Ballard's early work, and much of his later, deals with the various psychological processes to which we subject our perceptions of reality. One of his earliest stories, "Build-Up" (1957; vt "The Concentration City") is a kind of bravura replay of the Clarke story cited above. A young man living in claustrophobic circumstances catches a train to escape; after weeks of travelling in one direction he finds he is going east, not west; the space of the city is curved; there is no outside, just as with our own Universe. In "The Subliminal Man" (1963) the very quickness of our perception is exploited by advertisers. In "Manhole 69" (1957) an experiment in sleep deprivation gets out of control as the subjects' apprehension of reality shrinks their universe, smaller and smaller, effectively strangling them. The whole of Ballard's oeuvre is, in effect, an extended exploration of the inner, psychic universes made up by our selective perceptions of the external world - hence the term he popularized, used often of his subject matter, INNER SPACE.The paradox in Ballard is that, although our inner reality is made up of data from the outside (in such a confusing hotchpotch that the system can short out through overload), the inner pattern created by the data mediates the reception of further data in a kind of vicious circle, where no certainty is possible. Dick's emphasis is a little different; his realities often require inverted commas: they are "realities" consistently adulterated by false constructs, hallucinations, counterfeiting. Ultimately the conjuring is so baffling that the stability of any reality comes to seem suspect; the external world suffers a kind of dissolution. In its place we are left with a view which is surprisingly far from pessimistic, as Dick implies it; it can be synopsized (only crudely) as "the universe is what we perceive it to be". This is not necessarily an intolerable labyrinth, for Dick provides a dogged survival factor connected somehow to innate human decency, by which the construction of simple, often ethical reference points may prevent the self from spiralling inwards into subjective madness: handholds for the mind. The most important works by Dick relevant to perception are Eye in the Sky (1957), Time Out of Joint (1959), THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE (1962), THE THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRITCH (1964), Martian Time-Slip (1964), The Penultimate Truth (1964), Dr Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb, (1965), Now Wait for Last Year (1966), Ubik (1969), A Maze of Death (1970), and Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974). Together they constitute a kind of meta-novel, unique in literature. Ursula K. LE GUIN moved briefly into Dick's territory with The Lathe of Heaven (1971), in which a man has the power to alter reality through his dreams; here, although the reality-shifts are adroitly managed, the central theme bears more on the making of ethical decisions than it does on questions of appearance and reality per se.Several of the shifting realities cited in the Dick novels above were catalysed by drugs, his A SCANNER DARKLY (1977) being his most prolonged exploration of the theme. The late 1960s saw a general interest in the drug-culture. In the air was a romantic belief that drugs could open the gates of perception, and offer heightened and perhaps superior versions of reality. Very few sf writers subscribed to this myth, and indeed when drugs had figured in earlier sf - as in Aldous HUXLEY's BRAVE NEW WORLD (1932), where drugs are used to dim perception and bring about a false euphoria - they had usually been seen as detracting from rather than heightening the powers of perception, although Margaret ST CLAIR in Sign of the Labrys (1963) has the consciousness-heightening power of some fungi as potentially transcendental. Similarly, in Robert SILVERBERG's Downward to the Earth (1970) a drug is the agent for the transcendent rebirth undergone by the hero, who, like the despised natives on the planet he has revisited, is suffused by a new and joyful perception of life's harmony. Also relevant here is The Butterfly Kid (1967) by Chester ANDERSON, in which the drug-induced mood is more cheerful than transcendent.More common, even in the 1960s, at the height of the drug culture's years of euphoria, were sf stories about the distortions of perception brought about by drugs, especially those written by NEW-WAVE writers, who could not generally be described as conservative and who indeed lived in the main closer to the drug-culture than sf writers a little older. Drug-taking, for example, plays a role in Charles PLATT's The City Dwellers (1970; rev vt Twilight of the City 1977) and M. John HARRISON's The Centauri Device (1974). Perhaps the most vivid of all new-wave sf works dealing with perception shifts through drugs is Brian W. ALDISS's Barefoot in the Head (fixup 1969), in which hallucinogenic drugs have been used as a weapon in Europe, and the entire freaked-out population shifts into a euphoric anarchy that changes easily to violence. Norman SPINRAD has written some notable stories about drugs, including "No Direction Home" (1971), where a future USA is so used to orchestrating its mental states by drugs that perception of naked reality without any chemical assistance is seen as the worst trip of all.Synaesthesia is an interesting perceptual state which occasionally appears in sf; it is a condition where the senses become confused and feed into one another, so that, perhaps, a vision can be smelt. Alfred BESTER exploited it in Tiger! Tiger! (1956 UK; rev vt The Stars My Destination 1957 US), where, in a compelling passage, the hero's apotheosis comes about (with many verbal fireworks) in a synaesthetic rite of passage which mixes agony and exultation. Spinrad envisaged synaesthesia as perhaps addictive in his strong story "All the Sounds of the Rainbow" (1973).Drugs can be seen as a quasi-natural or at least organic method of altering modes of perception. Sf, naturally, has many times invented technological means for doing the same thing. Bob SHAW has persistently written about alternate forms of vision: in the Slow Glass stories collected in Other Days, Other Eyes (fixup 1972) a glass is invented which slows the passage of light through it, so that the past can be directly perceived in the present; in Night Walk (1967) a blind man invents a device which allows him to see through the eyes of other humans and animals; and in A Wreath of Stars (1976) a device is invented to render visible a world (coexisting with our own) made entirely from antineutrinos.The Slow Glass stories bring us directly to the last category: unusual perceptions of time (see also TIME TRAVEL). Spinrad has written in this area: "The Weed of Time" (1970) is about a drug which makes its victim see all his lifetime as co-present; the effect is retroactive, so that the hero as a child knows he will be affected by the drug before he has been. Dick's Martian Time-Slip (1964) sees schizophrenia ( PARANOIA) as bringing with it an altered time perception. In James BLISH's "Common Time" (1953) the altered time perception is brought about by pseudo-relativistic effects in a rapidly accelerating spaceship. Eric Frank RUSSELL's "The Waitabits" (1955) is an amusing story about a race of aliens who experience time much more slowly, appearing almost static to humans. Kurt VONNEGUT Jr's Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) has aliens who, like Spinrad's hero, see all time as existing simultaneously, which gives them a somewhat deterministic view of the Universe. In Jacques STERNBERG's "Ephemera", one of the stories in Futurs sans avenir (coll 1971; trans as Future without Future 1974), survivors of a spacewreck are doomed when they land on a planet in which, as in Russell's story, the inhabitants see time more slowly. Ballard, as might be expected, has several stories about the perception of time, the most powerful being "The Voices of Time" (1960), in which the Universe is running down and time perception on Earth is altered in various ways; one man is able to sense geological time directly, as if he smelt it. Time is a dominant theme of Aldiss's work; his stories about time perception include the strange "Man in His Time" (1965), about a man who perceives time a few minutes ahead of everyone else, and "The Night that All Time Broke Out" (1967), in which a time gas used for controlled mental time travel gushes out and affects everyone. His most notable story of this kind is An Age (1967; vt Cryptozoic! 1968 US), in which it finally turns out that time actually runs backwards, but our minds defensively perceive it as going forward. The same notion was used at around the same time, quite coincidentally, by Philip K. Dick in Counter-Clock World (1967), but the Aldiss book, though uneven, has the greater imaginative brio; more recent treatments of the ideas of An Age and "Man in his Time" are, respectively, Martin AMIS's Time's Arrow (1991) and Eric BROWN's "The Time-Lapsed Man" (1988). The strangest of all such stories, however, must be David I. MASSON's "Traveller's Rest" (1965), about a war against an unknown enemy on the northern frontier of a country where the perception of time slows down as one travels south; a soldier on indefinite leave marries, raises a family, grows middle-aged, and is eventually called up again to find himself back in his bunker 22 minutes after he left. The story is told with extraordinary conviction.The time-perception stories cited above are generally of a very high standard, demonstrating clearly the way that sf thought-experiments can stimulate the mind and move the feelings in ways that are almost closed to traditional realist fiction. We take time for granted without fully understanding it, or how it works; these stories, with some intensity, stretch our perceptions of what meaning it might have for us. [PN] PERCY, F. WALKER (1916-1990) US doctor and writer who reflected in his novels - the best known of which remains his first, The Moviegoer (1961) - a searchingly liberal and Catholic reading of US life. Love in the Ruins: The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time Near the End of the World (1971), the first vol of the Dr Thomas More series, is a long, complex NEAR-FUTURE story set in a 1980s USA suffering technological decay, and almost certainly in no real position to benefit from the invention by the narrator - distantly related to the author of Utopia - of an insanity-curing device. It is continued thematically in The Thanatos Syndrome (1987). The speculative pieces assembled in Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book (coll 1983) are mostly nonfiction, but the end of the book slips into uneasy sf. [JC] PEREGOY, CALVIN [s] Thomas Calvert MCCLARY. PEREIRA, W(ILFRED) D(ENNIS) (1921- ) UK aviation engineer, advertising executive and writer whose first books, from Time of Departure (1956), concentrated on flying. He began writing sf with Aftermath 15 (1973), which depicts a DYSTOPIAN post- HOLOCAUST USA whose inhabitants are rigidly stratified according to how much radiation they have absorbed. The projected sequels, Aftermath 16 and Aftermath 17, have never appeared. WDP's other novels, all written for ROBERT HALE LIMITED in a professionally impersonal style, have been The Charon Tapes (1975), Another Eden (1986), Contact (1977), The King of Hell (1978) and Celeste (1979). [JC] PEREIRA MENDES, H(ENRY) (1852-1937) UK-born rabbi, academic and writer, from 1877 in the USA, where he wrote prolifically in many genres. Looking Ahead: Twentieth Century Happenings (1899) tells of various socialist upheavals which lead to several world wars and are defeated, in the end, only by an alliance of theocratical Christians and Jews, which also establishes in Palestine a Jewish homeland ruled by a descendant of the ancient Jewish monarchy. [JC] PERFECT WOMAN, THE Film (1949). Two Cities/Eagle-Lion. Dir Bernard Knowles, starring Patricia Roc, Stanley Holloway, Nigel Patrick, Miles Malleson, Irene Handl, Pamela Devis, Constance Smith. Screenplay George Black, Knowles, based on the play The Perfect Woman (produced 1948; 1950) by Wallace Geoffrey and Basil Mitchell. 89 mins. B/w.An inventor creates a ROBOT in the image of his niece and hires a young man to take it out on a date as a final test of its believability. But the real girl takes the robot's place during testing, and a conventional but well played farce follows, notable for its underwear fetishism and a sauciness quite close to the rim of what the period regarded as decent. The ending is mildly apocalyptic when the malfunctioning robot marches stiff-legged, spouting sparks and smoke, through a crowded hotel before exploding. [JB/PN]See also: CINEMA. PERILS FROM THE PLANET MONGO FLASH GORDON. PERKINS, GEOFFREY [r] Douglas ADAMS. PERKINS, MICHAEL [r] ESSEX HOUSE. PERRY, ROGER [r] ROBERT HALE LIMITED. PERRY, STEVE (1947- ) US writer who began publishing sf with "With Clean Hands" as by Jesse Peel for Gal in 1977, and whose first novel, The Tularemia Gambit (1981), combines sf with elements of the hardboiled detective genre. After two ties for the Time Machine sequence produced by the Byron PREISS packaging enterprise - Sword of the Samurai * (1984) with Michael REAVES and Civil War Secret Agent * (1984) - and an effective sf adventure, Hellstar (1984) with Reaves, SP finally came into his own with the Matador sequence: The Man who Never Missed (1985), Matadora (1986) and The Machiavelli Interface (1986), along with a prequel, The 97th Step (1989); plus The Omega Cage (1988) with Reaves,Black Steel (1992) and Brother Death (1992), all set in the Matador universe. Khadaji, the sequence's hero, rebels against a violent military dictatorship using his skill at martial arts to mock the enemy into impotence; in his raffish insouciance, he rather resembles Leslie CHARTERIS's Saint. The first volume takes its title from the fact that Khadaji has stolen a fixed number of non-lethal poison darts and proceeds to knock out precisely that number of government figures with them, never once missing, and generating a revolt through mirth; the book might be called an exercise in muscular pacifism. Subsequent volumes do not build on the success of the first, but neither do they significantly decline. Of SP's remaining singletons, Dome (1987) with Reaves makes efficient use of its post- HOLOCAUST submarine setting, as AIs come gradually to dominate the new world. [JC]Other Works: Several Conan SWORD-AND-SORCERY fantasies, including Conan the Fearless * (1986), Conan the Defiant * (1987), Conan the Indomitable * (1989), Conan the Free Lance * (1990) and Conan the Formidable * (1990); The Albino Knife (1991); The Hero Curse (1991 chap); several Aliens ties: Earth Hive * (1992), Nightmare Asylum *(1993), The Female War * (1993), plus one volume also tied to the Predator film sequence, Aliens vs Predator: Prey *(1994) with Stephani Perry; Spindoc (1994); Stellar Ranger (1994), a space opera in Western style; The Mask * (1994), novelizing the film.. PERRY, WALTER COPLAND (1814-1911) UK writer, lawyer and archaeologist in whose sf novel, The Revolt of the Horses (1898), the Houyhnhnms (from Jonathan SWIFT's Gulliver's Travels [1726]) arrive in the England of 1950. Finding humans as terrible as ever - a future WAR features in the tale - they decide to destroy the race. [JC] PERRY RHODAN German sf series, weekly, published by Verlagsunion Pabel Moewig (formerly Moewig-Verlag). Created by Walter Ernsting (who writes for the series as Clark DARLTON) and Karl-Herbert SCHEER, PR began in 1961 and is still current: to the end of 1991 about 1600 booklets describing Perry Rhodan's adventures and mankind's destiny had been published, a record quite without precedent in sf. The weekly booklet series is accompanied by a monthly paperback series, which fills some of the narrative gaps. Often thought of as aimed at the teenage market, PR is actually read, surveys show, by readers of all ages, both men and women.Though the stories have been dismissed as potboilers, the fans of this German future HISTORY (of whom thousands attend PR CONVENTIONS) argue that the density and complexity of the world built up over so many volumes has led to a sophistication unusual in SPACE OPERA. Conversely, the series's many critics, especially in Germany, have attacked it not only on literary grounds but also for being what Franz ROTTENSTEINER calls "notoriously fascist". This judgement of PR's reactionary nature has been supported and argued at length by Michael Pehlke and Norbert Lingfeld in Roboter und Gartenlaube: Ideologie und Unterhaltung in derScience-Fiction-Literatur ["The Robot and the Summerhouse: Ideology and Entertainment in SF"] (1970) and by Manfred Nagl in "Unser Mann im All" ["Our Man in Everywhere"] (1969 Zeitnahe Schularbeit #4/5). During the first years of its existence PR was indeed dominated by military conflicts, but the concept changed so that now PR concentrates on solving mysteries of galactic or even cosmic scale - with lots of action.The success of the series has been enormous, and not just in GERMANY. Translations have appeared (and sometimes still do) in many European countries, including the UK (since 1974), France (1966), Belgium (1966), Netherlands (1971), Finland (1975) and Italy (1976); also in Japan (since 1971), Brazil (since 1975) and notably in the USA, where it was published by ACE BOOKS. Ed Forrest J. ACKERMAN, the US series-monthly for much of the time - appeared for 118 numbers (1969-77) in paperback-book format, containing a letter column, articles, new stories and reprints of sf classics in addition to the leading PR novella or (in later volumes) 2 novellas; a few further PR titles were published by Ace in their Atlans series. When all the translations are included, PR has had a readership higher than anything else in sf.Perry himself is an Earthman propelled into the politics of the Galaxy ( GALACTIC EMPIRES). He builds his small group, the New Power, into a Solar Empire; after renouncing all claims to leadership, the Solar Empire becomes one of the equal members of the Galacticum. It has been said that there is no sf idea which will not, sooner or later, be used in the series. The authors include, in addition to Ernsting (Scheer died 1991): Kurt Brand, Arndt Ellmer, H.G. Ewers, Robert Feldhoff, H.G. Francis, Peter Griese, Horst Hoffmann, Hans Kneifel, Kurt Mahr, Marianne Sydow, Ernst Vlcek, William Voltz (died 1984) and Thomas Ziegler. Voltz was the long-time coordinator and chief author, having early superseded Scheer in this function. Each episode is written by one of the team from a treatment done by the "factory", currently Vlcek and Mahr, according to the further development of the series as discussed in an annual authors' meeting. PR has appeared in comic books, and there was also a PR magazine 1977-81. [HU/PN]Further reading: Analyse einer Science-Fiction-Romanheftserie (1979) by Claus Hallman; "'Perry Rhodan'", by Mike ASHLEY in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines (1985) ed Ashley and Marshall B. TYMN; partial indexes of the Perry Rhodan novels were published by NESFA (1973 and 1975); a full list of English-language titles can be found in Science Fiction and Fantasy Series and Sequels: A Bibliography (1986) by Tim Cottrill, Martin H. GREENBERG and Charles G. WAUGH. PERTWEE, ROLAND (1885-1963) UK painter, actor, playwright and author whose MW.XX.3. (1929; vt Hell's Loose 1929 US; vt The Million Pound Cypher 1931 UK) is an early example of the tale of technological PARANOIA. A dead scientist is discovered along with the eponymous formula for a cheap fuel which will if released supplant petroleum. The UK Government allows limited use of the fuel, but only until a working-class strike fomented by communists is defeated; thereafter the petroleum corporations are allowed to re-establish their dominance. [JC] PERU LATIN AMERICA. PERUTZ, LEO (1882-1957) Austrian novelist and playwright who moved to Israel in 1938 after the Anschluss. Most of his novels are baroque phantasmagorias, like Zwischen Neun und Neun (1918; trans Lily Lore as From Nine to Nine 1926 US), an elaborately grotesque afterlife fantasy, Der Marques de Bolibar (1920; trans Graham Rawson as The Marquis de Bolibar 1926 UK), in which the Wandering Jew and the spirit of the eponymous marquis defeat a German regiment fighting for Napoleon, and Die Geburt des Antichrist ["The Birth of the Antichrist"] (1921). Of more direct sf interest are Der Meister des juengsten Tages (1923; trans Hedwig Singer as The Master of the Day of Judgment 1929 UK), in which it is suggested that an ancient hallucinogen, when breathed by men of ambition, will so terrifyingly expose their true nature that they will commit suicide, and Sanct Petri-Schnee (1933; trans E.B.G. Stamper and F.M. Hodson as The Virgin's Brand 1934 UK; trans Eric Mosbacher as Saint Peter's Snow 1990 UK), which similarly depends upon a sense that human civilization is a fragile contrivance. The eponymous wheat fungus at the centre of this tale has been, from time immemorial, responsible for spreading a virus which induces faith in humans. In 1932, after long dormancy, the virus has been deliberately reinjected into European wheat strains in order to revitalize Christianity, but the deity invoked turns out to be not God but Moloch. So forthright a fable for the times could not go unchallenged, and the Nazis banned the book as soon as they came to power. [JC]See also: AUSTRIA; GODS AND DEMONS. PESEK, LUDEK (1919- ) Czech writer and artist. LP's first novels (about social inequalities; not sf) were published in Czechoslovakia in the late 1940s, but for decades he has lived abroad, his books being first published in German translation; they have been widely translated into other languages. His astronomical paintings are well known, and have been featured in National Geographic; he has illustrated some of his own books. The first of several sf juveniles is Die Mondexpedition (1966 Germany; trans as Log of a Moon Expedition 1969). His best is Die Erde ist nah (1970 Germany; trans Anthea Bell as The Earth is Near 1973). It deals, with unusual sophistication for CHILDREN'S SF, with the psychological stresses experienced by the first expedition to MARS, and won the 1971 Jugendbuchpreis (Children's Book Prize) in Germany. Another sf book is Falle fur Perseus (1976 Germany; trans Anthea Bell as Trap for Perseus 1980), set in a 23rd-century totalitarian DYSTOPIA. [JO/PN]Other works: Preis der Beute ["Price of Plunder"] (1973 Germany); Eine Insel fur Zwei (1974 Germany; trans as An Island for Two 1975).See also: CZECH AND SLOVAK SF; SOCIOLOGY; SPACE FLIGHT. PESSIMISM ENTROPY; OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM. PETAJA, EMIL (THEODORE) (1915- ) US writer of Finnish descent, most of whose earlier fiction was fantasy rather than sf. He began publishing in 1935 with "The Two Doors" for the semiprozine UNUSUAL STORIES; his first professional sale was "Time Will Tell" for AMZ in 1942. Some of his early work can be found in Stardrift, and Other Fantastic Flotsam (coll 1971). Occasionally he wrote as E. Theodore Pine (once with Henry L. HASSE), though only in magazines. A friend of Hannes BOK, EP founded the Bokanalia Foundation in 1967, after Bok's death, publishing a commemorative volume, And Flights of Angels: The Life and Legend of Hannes Bok (1968) and editing The Hannes Bok Memorial Showcase of Fantasy Art (1974). EP's first novel was Alpha Yes, Terra No! (1965 dos); he published a further 12 books over the next half decade. The best known make up a series based on the Finnish verse epic Kalevala. In each of the novels of the Kalevala sequence - Saga of Lost Earths (1966) and The Star Mill (1966), both assembled under their joint titles (omni 1979), and The Stolen Sun (1967 dos) and Tramontane (1967 dos), both likewise assembled under their joint titles (omni 1979) - a Terran descendant of one of the four main heroes of the Kalevala is reborn into his avatar's role to order to re-enact his adventures on Otava, the planet of origin of this pantheon. A fifth book of the sequence remains unpublished. A novel unconnected with the series but still related to the Kalevala is The Time Twister (1968). The Green Planet series - Lord of the Green Planet (1967 dos) and Doom of the Green Planet (1968 dos) - recounts similar adventures befalling its Irish protagonist, who finds himself role-playing fake Celtic deities for the benefit of a madman armed with sf instruments of coercion. Most of EP's sf trades unpretentiously on the emotions aroused by mythical analogues like those in his Kalevala books; the adventure plots through which he evokes these resonances are by no means poorly conceived, and he remains entirely readable. [JC]Other works: The Caves of Mars (1965 dos); The Prism (1965 Worlds of Tomorrow; exp 1968 dos); The Nets of Space (1969); The Path Beyond the Stars (1969); Seed of the Dreamers (1970 dos); As Dream and Shadow (coll 1972), poetry.See also: FINLAND; MYTHOLOGY. PETERKIEWICZ, JERZY (1916- ) Polish writer-his first novel in English was published as by Jerzy Pietrkiewicz - active as a poet in his native land before WWII. He lived in the UK for many years, wrote in English, and was married to Christine BROOKE-ROSE 1968-75. The Quick and the Dead (1961) is an afterlife fantasy. Inner Circle (1966), which is sf, remarkably conflates three strands of story: one set in the mythical past, one on the Circle Line of London's underground railway, and one in a horrific FAR FUTURE where congestion (under an artificial dome) is so great there is no room to lie down. Each story reflects the others, setting up a complex commentary on the human condition. [JC] PETERS, DAVID Peter DAVID. PETERS, LAWRENCE [s] L.P. DAVIES. PETERS, LUDOVIC Pseudonym of UK writer Peter Brent (1931-1984), one of whose political thrillers, Riot '71 (1967), posits a NEAR-FUTURE racist crisis in an economically battered UK. [JC] PETRESCU, CEZAR [r] ROMANIA. PETTY, JOHN (1919- ) UK writer, variously employed until he began publishing in 1957. The Last Refuge (1966) is a post- HOLOCAUST novel set in an oppressive, grey England that provides no refuge for the protagonist-writer. [JC] PEYTON, AUDREY [r] ROBERT HALE LIMITED. PFEIL, DONALD J. (? - ) US writer whose Voyage to a Forgotten Sun (1975), Through the Reality Warp (1976) and Look Back to Earth (1977) were written in a deliberately (and enjoyably) outmoded SPACE-OPERA idiom. Under the house name William ARROW he wrote Return to the Planet of the Apes 2: Escape from Terror Lagoon * (1976). He was also editor of VERTEX. [JC] PFEIL, FRED Working name of US writer and academic John Frederick Pfeil (1949- ), whose sf novel, Goodman 2020 (1986), portrays in a superbly suffocating present tense the corporate USA of AD2020, where all power has fallen into the hands of priest-like businessmen. The most powerful of these hires the "professional friend" Goodman to give him moments of human society, but Goodman eventually kills him, escapes into the barrios (and the narrative dynamism of the more normal past tense) and settles down to prepare for a wholesome change. The politics of the book may seem naive, but the execution is compelling. Some of the essays assembled in Another Tale to Tell: Politics and Narration in Postmodern Culture (coll 1990) offer a formal context for FP's sf work. [JC] PHANTASM Film (1978). New Breed. Dir/prod/written/photographed Don Coscarelli, starring Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Reggie Bannister, Angus Scrimm. 90 mins, cut to 89 mins. Colour.At the independent, low-budget, exploitation end of the movie market, small miracles sometimes occur that could not take place inside a major studio. P is one such, a spirited blend of horror, surrealism and sf, in which the presumably alien and possibly supernatural Tall Man (Scrimm) steals bodies to be resuscitated and turned into malicious, deformed midgets with yellow blood, and then passed through a dimensional gate to be used as slave labour on a red desert planet. The teenager who opposes him, Mike (Baldwin), is troubled by a flying silver sphere that kills people by spiking their brains, by the Tall Man's severed finger that becomes a nasty insect, and most of all by the Tall Man's ability to confuse appearance and reality, to be there and not there, anticipating Wes Craven's Freddy in Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). P has the arbitrary, confused logic of a dream.A decade later Phantasm II (1988), also written/dir Coscarelli, was a mostly failed attempt to capitalize on the earlier cult success; it is less a sequel than a remake with a bigger budget. The special effects are more sophisticated and disgusting, but the randomness is more of a mess than a dream; the acting is stilted; ideas that were wholly original in 1978 had become cliches by 1988, and there were no new ideas to replace them; the sf content is negligible. [PN] PHANTASM II PHANTASM. PHASE IV Film (1973). Alced/Paramount/PBR Productions. Dir Saul Bass, starring Nigel Davenport, Lynne Frederick, Michael Murphy. Screenplay Mayo Simon. 91 mins, cut to 84 mins. Colour.A battle of wits takes place between, on the one hand, a fanatical SCIENTIST and two others living in a desert-based experimental dome and, on the other, an ant species which has acquired intelligence. The script substitutes mysticism for science and tries too hard to emulate 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) - as in its ending, where the two surviving human protagonists undergo a transcendental transformation. Originally there was also in the finale a 2001-like montage of surrealistic images showing a fantastic evolutionary upheaval, but this was cut by the studio after the initial release.Phase IV was Bass's directorial debut; he had previously been known as the designer of such striking movie title sequences as those for Psycho (1960) and Walk on the Wild Side (1962). While he is a master of his craft visually, his handling of actors is unsatisfactory and he seems to have little feeling for sf. This conceptually silly melodrama is an interesting failure, its attraction lying in the superb insect photography by Ken Middleham rather than in any sf content. The novelization is Phase IV * (1973) by Barry N. MALZBERG. [JB/PN]See also: MONSTER MOVIES. PHELPS, GILBERT (HENRY Jr) (1915-1993) UK writer who spent much of his career in the BBC as a radio producer. His first story, "I Have Lived a Hundred Years" in The Faber Book of West Country Stories (anth 1951), prefigured the thematic material of his first sf novel, The Centenarians (1958), whose protagonists attempt - in the end unsuccessfully - to translate their eminence in the arts and sciences into lives safely prolonged. The Winter People (1963), a very late example of the LOST-WORLD tale, describes a tribe in the Andes which has survived for centuries through hibernation and other adaptations to extreme circumstances. [JC]See also: ANTHROPOLOGY. PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT, THE Film (1984). New World/Cinema Group/New Pictures/Douglas Curtis. Executive prod John CARPENTER. Dir Stewart Raffill, starring Michael Pare, Nancy Allen, Bobby Di Cicco, Eric Christmas. Screenplay William Gray, Michael Janover, based on a story by Wallace Bennett and Don Jakoby, based in turn on the purportedly nonfictional The Philadelphia Experiment (1979) by William I. Moore and Charles Berlitz. 101 mins. Colour.In 1943 a device to render warships invisible to radar is tested, but instead it throws an entire destroyer and crew temporarily forward in time, where two crew members fall through a vortex into the 1984 Nevada desert. One of them (whose electromagnetic instability has been creating havoc) is later drawn back to 1943. The second, joined by a paradigmatic 1980s woman (Allen), undergoes the culture shock obligatory in all visiting- ALIEN and TIME-TRAVEL films, refuses to believe that Reagan is president, looks up his buddy (now elderly), finds the time vortex is getting worse, and winds up - after a brief detour to 1943 during which he saves the world - back in 1984. TPE is silly as sf (having undergone many rewrites, including a script by Carpenter) but fun. While not as amusing as Raffill's earlier The ICE PIRATES (1984), it is better than his appallingly sentimental Mac and Me (1988), a film about cute aliens that appears to be an unacknowledged advertising campaign for Coca-Cola and McDonalds. [PN]See also: INVISIBILITY. PHILIP K. DICK AWARD Founded in 1983 by admirers of Philip K. DICK, who died in 1982. Because much of Dick's classic sf was published with no fanfare and initially without a hardcover edition, it seemed appropriate to give the award to a distinguished work of sf or fantasy of the previous year first published in paperback. The award was initially suggested by Thomas M. DISCH, who was for several years its administrator; he was succeeded by an administrative team of Algis BUDRYS and David G. HARTWELL. The winners are chosen by a jury (with variously 3, 4 and 5 members) of writers and critics, most of whom choose their own successors for the following year; usually one judge is the previous year's winner. The PKDA is announced at NorWesCon, a CONVENTION held in the state of Washington in March each year. In good years, when the committee has collected enough cash, the winner receives $1000 and the second-place winner $500. Plaques are provided by the Philip K. Dick estate. [PN]Winners:1983: 1st, Rudy RUCKER, SOFTWARE2nd, Ray Faraday NELSON, The Prometheus Man1984: 1st, Tim POWERS, THE ANUBIS GATES2nd, R.A. MACAVOY, Tea With The Black Dragon1985: 1st, William GIBSON, NEUROMANCER2nd, Kim Stanley ROBINSON, THE WILD SHORE1986: 1st, Tim Powers, Dinner at Deviant's Palace2nd, Richard GRANT, Saraband of Lost Time1987: 1st, James P. BLAYLOCK, HOMUNCULUS2nd, Jack MCDEVITT, The Hercules Text1988: 1st, Patricia Geary, Strange Toys2nd, Mike MCQUAY, Memories1989: 1st (equal), Paul J. MCAULEY, 400 Billion Stars1st (equal), Rudy Rucker, Wetware1990: 1st, Richard Paul RUSSO, Subterranean Gallery2nd, Dave WOLVERTON, On My Way to Paradise1991: 1st, Pat MURPHY, Points of Departure (coll)2nd, Raymond HARRIS, The Schizogenic Man1992: 1st, Ian MCDONALD, King of Morning, Queenof Day2nd, Emma BULL, Bone Dance1993: 1st, Richard Grant, Through the Heart 2nd, Elisabeth VONARBURG, In the Mother's Land1994: 1st, John M. FORD, Growing Up Weightless and Jack WOMACK, Elvissey * PHILLIFENT, JOHN T(HOMAS) (1916-1976) UK writer of much sf and works in other genres; though he claimed to reserve his best material for publication under his own name, he was at least as well known to sf readers under his pseudonym John Rackham. He began writing sf with the Space Puppet series for Pearson's Tit-Bits SF Library as Rackham: Space Puppet (1954 chap), Jupiter Equilateral (1954 chap), The Master Weed (1954 chap) and Alien Virus (1955 chap). He produced also a fantasy series, the Chappie Jones stories, for Science Fantasy, beginning with "The Veil of Isis" (1961); these stories were assembled as The Touch of Evil (coll of linked stories 1963) as by Rackham. In the mid-1960s his career picked up some steam with a flow of Rackham SPACE OPERAS for ACE BOOKS, beginning with We, the Venusians (1965 dos US) and Danger from Vega (1966 dos US), and continuing with others of the same unambitiously readable nature. Under his own name, JTP produced in the 1970s some sf novels of real competence, including King of Argent (1973 US), an entertaining adventure set on an agreeably strange planet. Through his career, he remained a reliable producer of the second-rank fiction demanded by an entertainment genre hungry for copy. [JC]Other works: 3 MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. ties: The Mad Scientist Affair * (1966 US), The Corfu Affair * (1967) and The Power Cube Affair * (1968); Genius Unlimited (1972 US); Hierarchies (1973 dos US); Life with Lancelot (coll of linked stories 1973).As John Rackham: Watch on Peter (1964), a juvenile; The Beasts of Kohl (1966 dos US); Time to Live (1966 dos US); The Double Invaders (1967 dos US); Alien Sea (1968 dos US); The Proxima Project (1968 dos US); Ipomoea (1969 dos US); Treasure of Tau Ceti (1969 dos US); The Anything Tree (1970 dos US); Flower of Doradil (1970 dos US); Beyond Capella (1971 dos US); Dark Planet (1971 dos US); Earthstrings (1972 dos US); Beanstalk (1973 US). PHILLIPS, MARK Pseudonym used on a series of novels written by Randall GARRETT and Laurence M. JANIFER for ASF: Brain Twister (1959 as "That Sweet Little Old Lady"; 1962), The Impossibles (1960 as "Out Like a Light"; 1963) and Supermind (1960-61 as "Occasion for Disaster"; 1963). [BS] PHILLIPS, ROG Working name of US writer Roger Phillips Graham (1909-1965), a prolific contributor to the sf magazines of the late 1940s and 1950s. His first story was "Let Freedom Ring" in 1945 for AMAZING STORIES, which, along with its companion magazine FANTASTIC ADVENTURES, remained his most regular market. He wrote a series of stories featuring the character Lefty Baker: "Squeeze Play" (1947), "The Immortal Menace" (1949), "The Insane Robot" (1949) and "But Who Knows Huer or Huen?" (1969). His best known story is "The Yellow Pill" (1958), an ingenious exercise in paradoxes of PERCEPTION (see also CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH; PSYCHOLOGY). Some of his short work appeared as by Clinton Ames, Franklin Bahl, Craig Browning, Gregg Conrad, Inez McGowan, Melva Rogers, Chester Ruppert, William Carter Sawtelle and John Wiley; he also wrote under the house names Robert ARNETTE, Alexander BLADE, P.F. COSTELLO, A.R. STEBER, Gerald VANCE and Peter WORTH. Under the aegis of AMZ editor Raymond A. PALMER, RP conducted an influential FANZINE-review column, The Club House (Mar 1948-Mar 1953), later reviving it in other magazines ed Palmer: UNIVERSE SCIENCE FICTION and OTHER WORLDS. RP wrote 4 novels, none negligible, though less successful than some of his shorter work: Time Trap (1949), Worlds Within (1950), World of If (1951) and The Involuntary Immortals (1949 Fantastic Adventures; rev 1959), the last being an example of a kind of tale intrinsic to GENRE SF (a recent example being Nancy KRESS's Beggars in Spain [1991]): a group of young paranormals ( SUPERMAN) must band together to protect themselves from the vengeance of ungifted normal humans. [MJE/JC]See also: FANTASTIC VOYAGES; POLITICS; ZIFF-DAVIS. PHILLIPS, THOMAS L.P. DAVIES. PHILLPOTTS, EDEN (1862-1960) UK writer known primarily for his work outside the sf field. He was extremely prolific, writing about 250 books and plays. His first sf novel was the lurid thriller Number 87 (1922) as by Harrington Hext. His most notable SCIENTIFIC ROMANCES belong to a later and very different phase of his work: the excellent Saurus (1938), in which a reptilian ALIEN becomes an objective observer commenting upon contemporary society and the human condition; The Fall of the House of Heron (1948), a study of an amoral atomic scientist; and Address Unknown (1949), which deliberately challenges the assumption of Saurus that an alien observer could pass meaningful judgment on human affairs. These novels carried forward philosophical themes from a remarkable series of didactic philosophical fables, most of which are based in Greek mythology: The Girl and the Faun (1916chap), Evander (1919), Pan and the Twins (1922), The Lavender Dragon (1923), The Treasures of Typhon (1924), Circe's Island (coll 1925; includes The Girl and the Faun), The Miniature (1926), Arachne (1927), The Apes (1929), Alcyone (1930) and The Owl of Athene (1936). The last-named deploys some sf motifs, notably an INVASION of the UK by giant crabs, and links the mythological fantasies to the scientific romances. EP's philosophical meditations are featured also in a curious early fantasy, My Laughing Philosopher (1896); but the determined rationalism and Epicurean humanism developed in his allegorical fantasies is better displayed in his collection of fiction and nonfiction, Thoughts in Prose and Verse (coll 1924), whose fantasy stories include a visionary encounter with an inhabitant of JUPITER.Also of marginal sf interest are one of EP's early collaborations with Arnold Bennett (1867-1931), The Statue (1908), which involves innovative radio apparatus, and a treasure-island story Tabletop (1939), which features giant spiders. He wrote numerous mystery novels, some of which have very slight intrusions of ESP; the most interesting are The Grey Room (1921), which features a dramatic confrontation between scientific rationalism and religious mysticism in search of the solution to the mystery of a haunted room, and the rationalized-werewolf story Lycanthrope (1937). His other fantasies include A Deal with the Devil (1895), an ANSTEY-esque novel about a man who grows young, and several early stories collected in Fancy Free (coll 1901). There are occasional fantasies in his various other collections; the tales of "witchcraft" assembled in The Hidden Hand (coll of linked stories 1952) do not in fact invoke the supernatural. [BS]Other works: The Transit of the Red Dragon (coll 1903); The Golden Fetich (1903); The Flint Heart (1910); Black, White and Brindled (coll 1923); Up Hill, Down Dale (coll 1925); The Voice from the Dark (1925); Peacock House and Other Mysteries (coll 1926); The Blue Comet: A Comedy in Three Acts (1927); The Torch and Other Tales (coll 1929); Golden Island (1938).See also: ASTEROIDS; ASTRONOMY; LONGEVITY (IN WRITERS AND PUBLICATIONS); SATIRE; SOCIOLOGY. PHILMUS, ROBERT M(ICHAEL) (1943- ) US sf critic, professor of English literature at Concordia University, Montreal. He became a co-editor of SCIENCE-FICTION STUDIES with the Nov 1978 issue and remained in that position until the last issue of 1991; he remains a contributing editor. His Into the Unknown: The Evolution of Science Fiction from Francis Godwin to H.G. Wells (1970; rev 1983) is scholarly and informative, and something of a pioneering study for its time. RMP also wrote the section on "Science Fiction: From its Beginning to 1870" for the 1st edn of Anatomy of Wonder: Science Fiction (1976; rev 1981; rev 1987) ed Neil BARRON. With David Y. Hughes he ed H.G. Wells: Early Writings in Science and Science Fiction (coll 1975), and with Patrick PARRINDER he ed H.G. Wells's Literary Criticism (coll 1980). A variorum edition of Wells's The Island of Dr Moreau (1896), appeared in 1993. [PN]See also: CANADA; CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF. PHILPOT, JOSEPH HENRY [r] Philip L AFARGUE. PHYSICS In discussing the scientific content of sf it is customary to regard the sciences as ranging from "hard" to "soft", with physics lying at the hard end of the spectrum ( HARD SF). A concern with the hard sciences is generally held to have characterized sf of the period 1940-60, or a type of sf whose locus classicus is to be found in that period, and so we may expect this type of sf, in its scientific aspect, to be dominated by physics. In fact a large part of the importance in sf of physics can be attributed to its association with TECHNOLOGY; among the pure sciences, ASTRONOMY and BIOLOGY have probably provided more motive force for hard sf than has physics. Nevertheless, physics is prominent in the ideological and cultural background to sf, and its influence can often be detected even when it makes no explicit contribution to a story. A familiarity with physical ideas and an ability to deploy the language of physics have been used by many authors to establish a general scientific atmosphere, a good example being Isaac ASIMOV's "Three Laws of Robotics", which borrow the form of Newton's Three Laws of Motion so as to claim the same seminal impact.The two areas of physics which have been most popular with sf writers, GRAVITY (see also ANTIGRAVITY) and Relativity ( FASTER THAN LIGHT), are covered in the relevant entries. Ideas from physics have been applied to technology constantly since Hugo GERNSBACK or even Jules VERNE, but in such writing the interest usually lies in the application. Some writers seem to feel that the motivation of fundamental research lies entirely in its applications. Tom GODWIN, for example, in "Mother of Invention" (1953), changes the proverb and proposes that necessity is the mother of DISCOVERY; he shows the crew of a crashed spaceship developing a new theory of gravitation which enables them to design an antigravity generator to lift their ship. The most extreme example of this attitude is embodied in Raymond F. JONES's "Noise Level" (1952), which argues that, if we only try hard enough, we can discover any laws of nature we should like to be true.Many imaginary inventions and strange events are based on points of physics, though sometimes the explanation of the modus operandi amounts to no more than a translation into technical terms of the everyday description of its effect - as in H.G. WELLS's explanation in The Invisible Man (1897) that the INVISIBILITY potion works by giving human flesh a refractive index of one. An effect at the opposite pole to this was envisaged by Bob SHAW in his invention of "slow glass" in "Light of Other Days" (1966), in which light travels so slowly that it takes several years to travel through the thickness of a window pane. (Realizing that it would not give quite the effect he wanted, Shaw was obliged to reject the description of slow glass as simply having a very high refractive index.)Part, if only a small part, of the effectiveness of the idea of slow glass lies in the way it provides an imaginative realization of a physical fact that in normal experience remains merely theoretical knowledge, namely the finiteness of the speed of light. This kind of imaginative exploration of physics can be seen in its purest form in James BLISH's "Nor Iron Bars" (1957), which is an attempt to provide a picture of the inside of an atom and the quantum behaviour exhibited by electrons, utilizing the device of having a spaceship shrink to subatomic size and move inside an atom as if it were a solar system. This was one of the very few sf stories before the mid-1970s to make any substantial use of quantum phenomena. Blish adopted a similar approach to a more familiar area of physics in his famous microscopic-world story "Surface Tension" (1952).Ideas from physics have been used in postulating new forms of life. The favourite basis for these is electromagnetic fields, either in isolation, as in Fredric BROWN's "The Waveries" (1945) and Bob Shaw's The Palace of Eternity (1969), or in conjunction with inorganic matter, as in Fred HOYLE's The Black Cloud (1957), the latter having something in common with the sentient suns in Olaf STAPLEDON's STAR MAKER (1937). Blish's VOR (1958) is about a creature whose energy source is one of the fusion cycles which Bethe proposed as taking place in stars (this creature communicates by modulating light waves rather than sound waves). In Fredric Brown's "Placet is a Crazy Place" (1946) there are birds, made of condensed matter, which fly through the rock of a planet as if it were air. StanisLaw LEM's SOLARIS (1961; trans 1970) postulates life formed from a new type of matter composed entirely of neutrinos. Shaw's A Wreath of Stars (1976) postulates an antineutrino world whose form of matter can interpenetrate with that of our own. Neutrinos are particles which have no properties other than momentum and spin, and interact only very weakly with other particles, so that they are very difficult to stop. Their harmlessness is the point of Ralph S. Cooper's SATIRE "The Neutrino Bomb" (1961); their delicacy underlies the idea of "neutrino acupuncture" in "Six Matches" (1960) by Arkady and Boris STRUGATSKI.The last four examples make use of the branch of physics which, together with COSMOLOGY (including theories of BLACK HOLES), has undergone dramatic development in the last decade and therefore has the most obvious potential for sf; the physics of elementary particles. Subnuclear physics provides one of the ideas in Isaac Asimov's THE GODS THEMSELVES (1972), which postulates a parallel universe whose strong nuclear force is greater than in ours; pumping electrons between the two universes provides a source of energy in both. Some of the more striking ideas in the field of particle physics concern condensed matter, ANTIMATTER and neutrinos. Condensed matter is of two kinds: "electron-degenerate" matter, the material of white dwarf stars, in which the atoms are compressed as close as they can be while remaining atoms (a matchboxful would weigh several tons); and nuclear matter ("neutronium"), the material of NEUTRON STARS, which has the density of the atomic nucleus (a pinhead of it would weigh several thousand tons). Degenerate matter features in "Placet is a Crazy Place" and in Paul CAPON's juvenile novel The Wonderbolt (1955); and nuclear matter in Larry NIVEN's "There is a Tide" (1968).Antimatter is composed of particles which are the opposite in all respects to those which compose ordinary matter; when matter and antimatter meet, they mutually annihilate in a burst of radiation. A.E. VAN VOGT's "The Storm" (1943) is about a storm in space that takes place when an ordinary gas cloud meets a cloud of antimatter gas. Some more of the craziness of Placet in Brown's story comes from its orbiting two suns, one of matter and the other of antimatter. Larry Niven described an antimatter planet in "Flatlander" (1967). The correspondence between an electron and its antiparticle, the positron, was used by Blish in "Beep" (1954) as the basis of a method of instantaneous signalling, following ideas suggested by the original description by Paul Dirac (1902-1984) of the positron ( DIRAC COMMUNICATOR). The formation of matter and antimatter universes in the first fraction of a second of creation, and some extremely hypothetical consequences for the nature of our reality, are treated in The Jonah Kit (1975) by Ian WATSON, who blends real and imaginary physics very adroitly throughout the book.Stories which turn on fairly elementary points of physics include: Arthur C. CLARKE's "A Slight Case of Sunstroke" (1958), in which the spectators at a football match hold their glossy programmes so as to form an enormous parabolic mirror focusing sunlight on the referee; Clarke's "Silence Please" (1954), in which the phenomenon of interference is used as the basis for a silence generator; Robert A. HEINLEIN's "Let There Be Light" (1940 as by Anson MacDonald), which suggests that the relationship between radio waves and light waves could be used to provide a cold light source; and Larry Niven's "A Kind of Murder" (1974), in which the fact that potential energy and heat are interchangeable forms of energy is exploited in an attempt at a perfect murder. The Dispossessed (1974) by Ursula K. LE GUIN is unusual in sf in that much of the story is focused on an attempt to recreate the thought processes and psychology of a physicist whose theories regarding simultaneity and the nature of time would create a revolution in physics comparable to that initiated by Einstein's Relativity theories. Le Guin's physics is imaginary though plausible and presented with conviction ( IMAGINARY SCIENCE); her psychology might very well be accurate.Finally, since measurement is of fundamental importance in physics, this is the place to mention those stories that make the point that all physical measurements are relative. It was put in its simplest form by Katherine MACLEAN in "Pictures Don't Lie" (1951); it was put further into the context of physics by Philip LATHAM in "The Xi Effect" (1950), observing that there would be no observable consequences if everything in the Universe were to contract at the same rate (although the contraction would become observable if the wavelength of visible light stayed constant). Referring to time rather than length, Blish described in "Common Time" (1953) an oscillating discrepancy between a man's internal (mental) time and external (physical) time.Since the appearance of black holes in sf in the mid-1970s there has been something of an upsurge of physics themes; most relate to COSMOLOGY, but a number of stories concern quantum physics, not necessarily cosmological. Often these stories take metaphors from physics rather than physics itself; one of the first such ideas drawn from physics and thereafter used as a metaphor is ENTROPY (which is from thermodynamics, not quantum physics), and many such stories are discussed under that head. An even older example is Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, formulated in 1927, which regularly appears both within and outside sf, usually not in its strict meaning but as a kind of "proof" from the world of physics that we can no longer be sure of anything, and that all the old certainties are gone. Schrodinger's Cat has popped up so often as almost to have become a CLICHE, as in "Schrodinger's Cat" (1974) by Ursula Le Guin, the Schrodinger's Cat trilogy (1979-81) by Robert Anton WILSON, The Coming of the Quantum Cats (1986) by Frederik POHL and "Schrodinger's Kitten" (1988) by George Alec EFFINGER. The attraction of this idea is that, according to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics formulated in the late 1960s by Hugh Everett, John Wheeler and Neill Graham-who took the fate of Schrodinger's possibly murdered cat (a half-dead, half-live wave function until somebody comes to look at it, at which point it collapses into one state or the other) as their starting point-the cat's fate gives an imaginative warrant for the existence of ALTERNATE WORLDS. Perhaps the wittiest use of ideas from quantum physics appears in Connie WILLIS's "At the Rialto" (1989), which describes the extraordinary quantum uncertainties that vex a congress of quantum physicists at a large hotel. It behoves us all to remember the remark of physicist Niels Bohr (1885-1962): "Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it."Among those who use ideas from physics with considerable sophistication and know-how are a number of writers of SPACE OPERA and adventure on other planets, including old-stagers like Larry Niven and Arthur C. Clarke but also newer authors, in their turn expanding the genre, like Stephen BAXTER, Greg BEAR, Gregory BENFORD, David BRIN, Robert L. FORWARD, Paul J. MCAULEY, Charles SHEFFIELD and John E. STITH. More detailed accounts of their work, and other relevant users of themes from physics, will be found by following up the various cross-references above as well as BIG DUMB OBJECTS, DYSON SPHERE, FORCE FIELD, ION DRIVE, MATHEMATICS, SPACE WARP and TACHYONS. [TSu/PN] PIANETA DEGLI UOMINI SPENTI, IL (vt Battle of the Worlds; vt Planet of the Lifeless Men) Film (1961). Ultra Film/Sicilia Cinematografica/Topaz. Dir Anthony Dawson (pseudonym of Antonio Margheriti), starring Claude Rains, Bill Carter, Umberto Orsini, Maya Brent, Jacqueline Derval. Screenplay Vassily Petrov. 94 mins, cut to 84 mins. Colour.Earth is threatened by a large meteor, which launches flying saucers at Earth and proves to be sent from an alien planet (now dead) and run by a COMPUTER. Rains is the scientist who gains access to the computer. The fevered stylization of the dead-planet imagery (giant skeletons, etc.) rather than the bewildering though sometimes funny story is what everyone who has seen this somewhat rare but visually striking film remembers. Margheriti, a very uneven director, was one of the most prolific stalwarts of the Italian exploitation movie. [PN] PIEGAI, DANIELA [r] ITALY. PIER, THE La JETEE. PIERCE, JOHN J. (1941- ) US editor and critic with a background in FANDOM, editor of a FANZINE, Renaissance, in the 1960s, and at that time author of polemical articles about the damage he saw being wrought on sf by writers of the NEW WAVE. JJP ed GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION Nov 1977-Mar/Apr 1979, years in which through no special fault of his the magazine was rapidly declining. Later he published an ambitious trilogy of critical books about sf, A Study in Imagination and Evolution, which together form a kind of HISTORY OF SF: Foundations of Science Fiction (1987), Great Themes of Science Fiction (1987),When Worlds Collide (1989) and Odd Genre: A Study in Imagination and Evolution (1994). These may deserve more discussion than they appear to have received. JJP's prose is accessible and the books are well organized, but their ideology is deeply conservative in the sense that non- GENRE SF is seen by JJP as effectively not sf at all. Within the books' strong bias toward HARD SF are some well informed discussions about the different ways in which sf has invented the future. Much of the analysis is thematic, some philosophical. [PN] PIERCE, JOHN R(OBINSON) (1910- ) US scientist and writer. As scientist he was a director of Bell Telephone Laboratories 1952-71, working intimately at the forefront of communications research and development; after 1971 he was professor of engineering at the California Institute of Technology, from which he had received his PhD in 1936. As writer, JRP published 14 nonfiction works, both specialized and popular, from Theory and Design of Electron Beams (1949; rev 1954) to Almost All about Waves (1974). As an sf writer he has published material under his own name, as John Roberts and as J.J. Coupling, beginning with "The Relics from the Earth" for Science Wonder Stories in 1930 under his own name. He remains best known as J.J. Coupling, contributing 1944-71 a number of nonfiction articles under that name to ASF. [JC]See also: IMMORTALITY. PIERCY, MARGE (1936- ) US writer who has become recognized as a significant voice of US FEMINISM, initially with POETRY in volumes like Breaking Camp (coll 1968) but more importantly in novels like Going Down Fast (1969) and Vida (1980). Her first sf novel, Dance the Eagle to Sleep (1970), deals with an attempt by a group of student revolutionaries to set up a loving, communistic alternative society in the shadow of a near-totalitarian NEAR-FUTURE US state. In WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME (1976) a Chicano woman, falsely accused of abusing her daughter and confined to a mental institution, makes contact with (or hallucinates the existence of) an emissary from a future society which has arisen in the aftermath of a "full feminist revolution". This vision of a USA in which women and men are truly equal and truly whole has inspired many; although, while the contemporary sequences are insightful and deeply moving, the descriptions of the future UTOPIA tend to lack credibility. It might be accurate to say that the culture so described is primarily a utopia of personal relationships rather than one of social and technological structures, and is perhaps best approached as a dream rather than as a realizable society. He, She and It (1991; vt Body of Glass 1992 UK) more sustainedly places its examination of human relationships in a CYBERPUNK-influenced vision of a USA dominated by Japanese corporations, but the analogy which structures the plot - an ANDROID powered by an AI is likened to the medieval GOLEM - seems sentimental, especially in the closing pages, where the android sacrifices itself so a Jewish commune may live. It nevertheless won the ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD for 1993. [NT/JC]See also: POETRY; SOCIOLOGY; WOMEN SF WRITERS. PIKE, CHRISTOPHER Pseudonym - apparently based on a Star Trek character - of US writer Kevin McFadden (? - ), whose career has been mostly devoted to novels for older children; some of these, like The Tachyon Web (1986), are sf adventures combining orthodox plots (in this case a group of teenagers "borrows" a spaceship in which they penetrate the eponymous barrier which keeps humans from outer space) with a modicum of contemporary relevance (the children in this book are sexually involved with one another). Other juveniles - including Chain Letter (1986), Last Act (1988), Remember Me (1989), Scavenger Hunt (1989), See You Later (1990), Witch (1990) and Fall into Darkness (1990) - are horror or fantasy, the latter sometimes involving TIME TRAVEL. With Sati (1990), whose eponymous heroine may be God or may be a dippy channeller, CP moved into adult fiction. Whisper of Death (1991) is an sf tale for older children, and The Season of Passage (1992) is an adult horror novel. [JC]Other Works: Monster (1992); Road to Nowhere (1993); The Eternal Enemy (1993); The Immortal (1993); The Wicked Heart (1993); The Listeners (1994); The Midnight Club (1994); The Last Vampire (1994). PILGRIM AWARD Given at its annual summer conference since 1970 by the SCIENCE FICTION RESEARCH ASSOCIATION to a person who has made distinguished contributions to the study of sf, the Pilgrim is awarded normally for a body of work rather than for a specific book or essay, and has gone to both scholars and critics, academic and otherwise. Judging is by a committee of the SFRA, reconstituted each year. Recipients become Honorary SFRA Members; until 1990 they received certificates, since then commemorative plaques (also given retrospectively to previous winners). The award is named for Pilgrims through Space and Time (1947) by J.O. Bailey, who in 1970 was the PA's first recipient. [PN]Winners:1970: J.O. BAILEY1971: Marjorie Hope NICOLSON1972: Julius KAGARLITSKI1973: Jack WILLIAMSON1974: I.F. CLARKE1975: Damon KNIGHT1976: James E. GUNN1977: Thomas D. CLARESON1978: Brian W. ALDISS1979: Darko SUVIN1980: Peter NICHOLLS1981: Sam MOSKOWITZ1982: Neil BARRON1983: H. Bruce FRANKLIN1984: Everett F. BLEILER1985: Samuel R. DELANY1986: George Edgar SLUSSER1987: Gary K. WOLFE1988: Joanna RUSS1989: Ursula K. LE GUIN1990: Marshall B. TYMN1991: Pierre VERSINS1992: Mark HILLEGAS1993: Robert REGINALD1994: John CLUTE PILLER, EMANUEL S. (1907-1985) US author, with Leonard ENGEL (whom see for details), of The World Aflame: The Russian-American War of 1950 (1947). [JC] PINCHER, (HENRY) CHAPMAN (1914- ) Indian-born UK writer of some fiction and considerable journalism. In his first sf novel, Not With A Bang (1965), the effects of an anti-age drug are seen as catastrophic. The Giantkiller (1967) is borderline sf in its portrait of a rabid union leader attempting to take over the nation. [JC]Other works: The Penthouse Conspirators (1970) and The Eye of the Tornado (1976), both borderline. PINCHIN, FRANK J(AMES) (1925-1990) UK research chemist and author. His first 4 sf novels, all as by Peter Dagmar, were not exceptional: Alien Skies (1962), Spykos 4: Strange Life-Forms on Unexplored Planets (1962; vt Spaceways 1973 Australia), Sands of Time (1963) - a fairly complex TIME-TRAVEL tale - and Once in Time (1963; vt Mind Probe 1973 Australia). Mars 314 (1970), under his own name, renders NEAR-FUTURE space flight with some versimilitude. Two Equals One (1982), his last Peter Dagmar title, features an electronic spying device which can read computer memories. Stargrail (1989) and Nexweb (1990), both as FJP, attempt to marry sf and occultism. [JC] PINE, E. THEODORE [s] Henry L. HASSE; Emil PETAJA. PINES, NED L. (1905-1990) US magazine and book publisher who in 1931 founded a group of magazines with Thrilling in the title: Thrilling Detective, Thrilling Love, etc. These became part of the Pines Publications group (which NP served as president 1929-61), whose associated companies included Standard Magazines, Beacon Magazines and Better Publications. In 1936 NP bought Gernsback's WONDER STORIES and retitled it THRILLING WONDER STORIES to fit neatly among his other magazines. Among NP's senior staff members were Leo MARGULIES and Mort WEISINGER. NP was by no means an sf specialist - of the 44 or so magazines he owned by the end of the 1930s, the huge majority were not sf - but other SF MAGAZINES followed, among them STARTLING STORIES in 1939, CAPTAIN FUTURE in 1940, and the reprint magazine FANTASTIC STORY QUARTERLY in 1950. All of these PULP MAGAZINES had died (like most of their kind) by the mid-1950s, Startling Stories being the last to go (Fall 1955). In 1942 NP founded the paperback publishing house Popular Library (which did not publish much sf) and put Margulies in charge; the Popular Library logo became a pine tree in 1956, in honour of NP, who retired in 1971. [PN] PINKWATER, DANIEL M(ANUS) (1941- ) US writer whose many novels for children have attracted large adult audiences for their surreal wit, their supple and astringent wisdom and (for sf readers in particular) the wry hilarity of their use of sf venues and themes. After several non-genre works as Manus Pinkwater (a form of his name which appears only in books of the 1970s), DMP began writing tales of genre interest with Wizard Crystal (1973) and Magic Camera (1974), attracting considerable attention with Lizard Music (1976), an sf fantasia in which a young boy begins seeing musical lizards everywhere, finds they are real and in secret occupancy of a nearby invisible island, and later discovers that they have allied themselves with the "right" sort of humans to oppose pod-people from space. Many of DMP's books are either explicitly constructed as series - like the Magic Moscow sequence and the Snarkout Boys sequence - or share venues and characters with one another. In the end, no DMP book stands alone: all occupy, in one way or another, a region whose children tend to be lonely but clear-sighted and whose adults are either blind (or astonishingly open) to the crowded marvellousness of the Universe. Some of the more outstanding singletons for older children are Wingman (1975) as Manus Pinkwater, Fat Men from Space (1976) as Daniel Manus Pinkwater, Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars (1979), Yobgorgle: Mysterious Monster of Lake Ontario (1979), Java Jack (1980) with Luqman Keele, The Worms of Kukumlima (1981) and Borgel (1990). The books for younger children, heavily illustrated and written in a bumptious though easy-to-follow style, are almost as intriguing. [JC]Other works (mostly for younger readers): The Moose sf trilogy featuring a time-travelling moose vampire and comprising Blue Moose 1975 chap) as Manus Pinkwater, The Return of the Moose (1979 chap) and The Moosepire (1986 chap); The Big Orange Splot (1977 chap); The Blue Thing (1977 chap); Pickle Creature (1979 chap); the Magic Moscow sequence, comprising The Magic Moscow (1980 chap), Attila the Pun (1981 chap) and Slaves of Spiegel (1982 chap); Tooth-Gnasher Superflash (1981 chap); the Snarkout Boys sequence, comprising The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death (1982) and The Snarkout Boys and the Baconburg Horror (1984); Roger's Umbrella (1982 chap) as by Honest Dan'l Pinkwater; I Was a Second-Grade Werewolf (1983); Ducks! (1984 chap); Devil in the Drain (1984 chap); The Frankenbagel Monster (1986 chap); The Muffin Fiend (1986 chap); Guys from Space (1989 chap); Wempires (1991 chap).Nonfiction: Fish Whistle: Commentaries, Uncommentaries, and Vulgar Excesses (coll 1989); Chicago Days/Hoboken Nights (1991), a memoir. PIONEER AWARD AWARDS. PIPER, H(ORACE) BEAM (1904-1964) US writer and gun collector, employed as a detective on the Pennsylvania Railroad until made redundant in the mid-1950s; his first name is not known for sure, and may have been Henry. Though he wrote for other genres, he is best remembered for his sf, much of which appeared in ASF from 1947, when he began with "Time and Time Again". Though he shared John W. CAMPBELL Jr's political views, and his sense of the appropriate kind of story in which to propound them, it is probably wrong to think of HBP as a mouthpiece for the great editor: he was (in the end tragically) his own man. His first sf novels - Crisis in 2140 (1953 ASF as "Null ABC"; 1957) and A Planet for Texans (1958), both with John J. MCGUIRE - are straightforward adventures, one set in a USA that has revolted from literacy for fear of its consequences, the other on a planet set up like a Western.Much of HBP's work fits very loosely into what has been called the Terro-Human future- HISTORY sequence, though large gaps remained at his death. The Federation tales - ostensibly embedded within the larger series - can be read as self-contained, and themselves encompass the Fuzzy books. Federation stories include Four-Day Planet (1961), Junkyard Planet (1963; vt The Cosmic Computer 1964), Space Viking (1963) and 2 posthumous collections, Federation (coll 1981) and Empire (coll 1981); of these stories "Omnilingual" (1957 ASF) is perhaps the finest ( LINGUISTICS). The Fuzzy series, in which HBP's enterprising clarity shows to best advantage, includes Little Fuzzy (1962) and The Other Human Race (1964; vt Fuzzy Sapiens 1976; the original, singularly stupid title was the choice of the book's first publisher), both assembled as The Fuzzy Papers (omni 1977), and the long-lost Fuzzies and Other People (1984). The small, joyful, sapient Fuzzies are natives of the planet Zarathustra ( COLONIZATION OF OTHER WORLDS). The first two volumes - which feature some gripping courtroom-drama sequences - centre on the attempts of the mining corporation which runs Zarathustra first to prevent recognition of Fuzzy INTELLIGENCE (so as to retain mining rights) and then, when it has become inevitable, to exploit this recognition. The third volume resolves the conflict between the company and those humans who are fathering the Fuzzies, whose neotenous, childlike nature ( Bjorn KURTEN) both demands the attention of adults and reveals HBP's skill at the juvenile. The series was continued in Fuzzy Bones * (1981) by William TUNING and Golden Dream: A Fuzzy Odyssey * (1984) by Ardath MAYHAR.A second distinct sequence, the Paratime Police/Lord Kalvan tales, most published originally in ASF, were assembled as Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (fixup 1965; vt Gunpowder God 1978 UK) and Paratime (coll 1981). The series was continued in Great Kings' War * (1985) by Roland GREEN and John F. CARR, the latter also editing The Worlds of H. Beam Piper (coll 1983) and presenting his work in other contexts. As a series of ALTERNATE-WORLDS variations, the sequence showed HPB in perhaps excessively argumentative vein, the alternate-world structure allowing him great latitude to express his political feelings.Not in general an innovative writer, HBP was at his best when he applied an ASF-derived firmness of setting and plausibility of characterization to emotionally arousing adventure plots in which political agendas existed only as subtexts. In 1964, his career apparently on the skids, and prevented by reticence and LIBERTARIAN principles from asking anyone to help him with temporary financial difficulties, he committed suicide. He died in his prime. [JC] Other works: Murder in the Gun Room (1953), HBP's first book, a detective novel; First Cycle (1982), an HBP outline expanded by Michael KURLAND; Uller Uprising (in The Petrified Planet [anth 1953] ed Theodore Pratt; 1983), part of the first SHARED-WORLD anthology in GENRE SF; Four-Day Planet & Lonestar Planet (omni 1979), comprising two novels, the first under its original title and the second being A Planet for Texans under a vt.About the author: Henry Beam Piper (1985 chap) by Gordon BENSON Jr.See also: ALIENS; ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN SF; CRIME AND PUNISHMENT; NUCLEAR POWER; PASTORAL; SPACE OPERA. PIRANHA Film (1978). New World. Executive prods Roger CORMAN, Jeff Schechtman. Dir Joe DANTE, starring Bradford Dillman, Heather Menzies, Kevin McCarthy, Keenan Wynn, Dick Miller, Paul Bartel, Barbara Steele. Screenplay John SAYLES, based on a story by Sayles and Richard Robinson. 94 mins. Colour.The army has been creating cold-water-tolerant man-eating piranhas for use in Vietnam, and some escape into a Texas river. An attempt by the army to hush this up permits a piranha invasion of a holiday resort on a lake. Here one can see some of the notable talents of the 1980s (Dante, Sayles, even Bartel) honing their craft in a MONSTER MOVIE of considerable wit and pace, with a strong (and much-imitated) emphasis on social comedy; the subtext is that ghastly people create metaphorical monsters that will devour them.An unofficial sequel, Piranha II: Flying Killers (1981; vt Piranha II: The Spawning), was a Dutch film, nothing to do with New World. Set in the Caribbean and very inept, it features flying piranhas that look like wind-up toys and was a surprisingly poor directorial debut for the later-celebrated James CAMERON. PIRANHA II PIRANHA. PIRATE WRITINGS US SEMIPROZINE, #1 1992, current, irregular DIGEST until #5 in Fall 1994, announced as quarterly small- BEDSHEET for future issues, edited by Ed McFadden, pub PirateWritings Publishing. PW is a well produced SMALL PRESS fiction magazine,perhaps more traditional to date than its title (which refers to radical or cutting-edge fiction)suggests. Recent issues have included work by Paul Di Filippo, Charkes DE LINT, Dan Hatch, IanMacLeod and Roger ZELAZNY. [GF/PN] PISERCHIA, DORIS (ELAINE) (1928- ) US writer, born and raised in West Virginia, in the US Navy 1950-54. She began publishing short fiction with "Rocket to Gehenna" for Fantastic in 1966. Her first novel, the remarkable and densely plotted VAN VOGT-style revenge drama Mister Justice (1973 dos), appeared after she had established some reputation in shorter forms, one of her stories being included in Best Science Fiction for 1972 (anth 1973) ed Frederik POHL. Star Rider (1974) recounts first-person adventures in a chokingly vivid Universe, versions of which recur throughout her work: events are pellmell, and the protagonist's far-flung quest for Doubleluck, a planet of dreams, constantly becomes enmired in that environment. A Billion Days of Earth (1976) similarly loses energy towards its close, but depicts its FAR-FUTURE venue with precision and eloquence; its ratmen with mechanical claws for hands are a particularly resonant notion, and demonstrate DP's clear creative preference for ALIENS, who rarely fail to outshine her human performers. Earthchild (1977) is similarly set on a far-future Earth under a similar threat of termination. Later novels - like Doomtime (1981) and Earth in Twilight (1981) - likewise tend to subordinate human protagonists to her ornate and sometime animate mises en scene, so that she is at times both daring and a trifle coy in subject matter and style: not even the female protagonists of Spaceling (1978) or The Dimensioneers (1982), though enjoying DP's approval, genuinely manage to dominate their texts. Blood Country (1981) and I, Zombie (1982), both as by Curt Selby, the latter a genuine sf novel about the posthumous revivification - for purposes of forced labour - of suicides, are also of interest. In her self-consciousness, and in the sense she conveys that landscape drowns action (rather than vice versa), DP seemed for a period very much a member of the US NEW WAVE; but she has not published since 1983, and the course of her further development cannot properly be guessed. [JC]Other works: The Spinner (1980); The Fluger (1980); The Deadly Sky (1983).See also: CHILDREN IN SF; CRIME AND PUNISHMENT; LIVING WORLDS. PLANETA BUR (vt Planet of Storms; vt Storm Planet; vt Cosmonauts on Venus) Russian Film (1962). Leningrad Studio of Popular Science Films. Dir Pavel Klushantsev, starring Kyunna Ignatova, Gennadi Vernov, Vladimir Yemelyanov, Georgi Zhonov. Screenplay Alexander Kazantsev, Klushantsev. 85 mins, cut to 74 mins. Colour.Cosmonauts land on Venus, accompanied by a robot that plays dance music (thus proving that funny ROBOTS are not peculiar to US CINEMA). A well paced adventure story follows as they search for intelligent life. In an interestingly realized alien landscape they encounter dinosaurs, dangerous plants and a volcanic eruption, but the sole intelligent Venusian appears only at the end, watching unnoticed as the crew departs. By Western standards the film is a little slow and overtalkative (long conversations between the ground crew and the woman controlling the command ship), but it is always watchable. The best Russian sf film until the 1970s, it is, like other Russian sf films of the period (Niebo Zowiet [1959] and Meshte Nastreshu [1963]), stronger on production design than on plot.Much footage from the Venus sequences was used in a Roger CORMAN production, Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965), which includes new US material written/dir John Sebastian (pseudonym of Curtis Harrington), starring Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue, but is little more than a partial remake. PB footage was used again in Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1966; vt Gill Woman), also a Corman production, along with new material dir Peter Bogdanovich (in his directorial debut), starring Mamie Van Doren and Mary Park. The new feature here was the inclusion of telepathic Venusian women who send the crash-landed astronauts home again. [JB]See also: RUSSIA. PLANETARY ROMANCE Any sf tale whose primary venue (excluding contemporary or NEAR-FUTURE versions of Earth) is a planet, and whose plot turns to a significant degree upon the nature of that venue, can be described as a planetary romance. For the term to apply properly, however, it is not enough that a tale simply be set on a world: James BLISH's A Case of Conscience (1958), for instance, has a planet as a primary venue yet cannot be called a planetary romance because the nature or description of this world has little bearing on the story being told. Nor can the term profitably be used for a tale set upon a planet whose mysteries are solvable in HARD-SF terms: Hal Clement's MISSION OF GRAVITY (1954) and Robert L. FORWARD's Rocheworld (1990), for instance, are typical hard-sf novels in that the worlds on which they are set amount to little more than the sum of the problems which they illustrate, and in that their protagonists successfully explain (or solve) those worlds. In the true planetary romance, the world itself encompasses - and generally survives - the tale which fitfully illuminates it.Though the term is recent, the form is coeval with SPACE OPERA. Most of Edgar Rice BURROUGHS's sf sequences - like the John Carter tales set on Barsoom - fit the description, and were soon being referred to as "interplanetary romances", a term Gary K. WOLFE defines in his useful Critical Terms for Science Fiction and Fantasy (1986) as "broadly, an adventure tale set on another, usually primitive, planet". Wolfe, properly restricting the use of the term to work done before WWII, considers other important contributors to the form to include Ralph Milne FARLEY, Homer Eon FLINT and Otis Adelbert KLINE. Unfortunately, however, few of the tales described as interplanetary romances show more than minimal interest in interplanetary travel, and the term is used only occasionally in this encyclopedia, generally within Wolfe's critical context.When we come to more sophisticated writers, for whom the SWORD-AND-SORCERY simplicities of Burroughs seemed inadequate to exploit the venue he had created, we must abandon the earlier formulation. The ornate and decadent tales of Clark Ashton SMITH - which were also instrumental in the creation of the subgenre SCIENCE FANTASY - are the first planetary romances (if one puts aside the work of E.R. EDDISON as being entirely fantasy, and David LINDSAY's A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS [1920] as being too confusing in its use of various genres to work as a clear example). By substituting temporal displacements for the early (and inconsequential) spatial shifts of Burroughs and his followers, Smith created the venue most favourable for the growth of the form: a FAR-FUTURE-style planet on which magic and science intertwine, inhabited by richly variegated races whose re-creation of the feudalisms and baroque rituals of our own history is generally knowing and often a form of art. Though her work for PLANET STORIES tended to be ostensibly set on MARS or VENUS, the superb planetary romances of Leigh BRACKETT dwelt in versions of those planets so displaced from our common history that they seem natural descendants of Smith's work.Brackett held back, however, from a complete exploitation of the venues hinted at by Smith, and the first full-fledged modern planetary romance is therefore probably Jack VANCE's THE DYING EARTH (coll of linked stories 1950), a book which successfully incorporates into the subgenre our own planet - but sufficiently near the end of time for magic to seem plausible. Vance's treatment of his far-future Earth as a kind of entranced, doomed, topiary paradise, in which primitivism and decadence mix and merge, soon became a trademark for his work and influenced a large number of writers, including Gene WOLFE, whose The Book of the New Sun (1980-83) is of course in part a planetary romance. But THE DYING EARTH lacks any very convincing sf rationale, and it was another Vance title that supplied sf writers with a model to exploit. Big Planet (1952 Startling Stories; cut 1957; further cut 1958; full text restored 1978), together with its sequel, Showboat World (1975; vt The Magnificent Showboats of the Lower Vissel River Lune XXIII South, Big Planet 1983), is set in a SPACE-OPERA Galaxy on a huge though Earthlike world whose landmass is vast enough to provide realistic venues for a wide range of social systems, and which is significantly low in heavy-metal resources (this both explains its relatively low gravity and permits a wide range of low-tech societies to flourish). Into this rich environment - in a fashion not dissimilar to the entrance of visitors to the typical UTOPIA - Vance introduces off-world protagonists whose need to travel across the planet provides a quest plot and a rationale for the lessons in ANTHROPOLOGY and SOCIOLOGY so common to the form. The pattern would be repeated often over the next several decades, and remains one of the central models for romantic sf.In his cogent introduction to a 1978 reprint of Philip Jose FARMER's The Green Odyssey (1957) Russell Letson argues strongly for the use of the term "planetary romance" - he should be credited for establishing it - to describe novels whose basic settings derive from Burroughs, whose plots often make use of the chase-and-quest conventions of adventure fiction, and whose protagonists frequently turn out to be high-tech men (or women) "stranded among pretechnological natives". Because Farmer is a more active plotter than Vance, The Green Odyssey itself might well serve as a model for the transformation of the Big Planet into story: its sophisticated play with anachronisms, and its active use of contrasts between different levels of TECHNOLOGY (reminiscent in this of the work of Poul ANDERSON) begins to demonstrate the range of uses to which the basic model might be put. From these three models - THE DYING EARTH, Big Planet and The Green Odyssey - can be seen to derive, after the fashion of sf at its creative best, most of the numerous planetary romances of recent decades. (Although J.R.R. TOLKIEN might be seen, through his creation of Middle-Earth, to have granted an oceanic imprimatur for the building of heavily mapped world-sized venues, it is probable that fantasy and science fantasy should be distinguished from one another precisely by the fact that, while the latter are usually set on planets, the former are usually set in landscapes, which may well be interminable. Middle-Earth is a landscape.)Authors early and importantly associated with the planetary romance include Marion Zimmer BRADLEY, with her Darkover novels, L. Sprague DE CAMP, some of the volumes of whose Viagens Interplanetarias sequence are crossovers from fantasy, and Frank HERBERT, whose Dune sequence incorporates some features from the planetary romance into its complex mix. More recently, examples have appeared from a very large number of authors: the Helliconia trilogy by Brian W. ALDISS, A WOMAN OF THE IRON PEOPLE (1991) by Eleanor ARNASON, Hegira (1979) by Greg BEAR, many of the novels of C.J. CHERRYH, the Song of Earth novels by Michael G. CONEY, The Warriors of Dawn (1975) by M.A. FOSTER, GOLDEN WITCHBREED (1983) and Ancient Light (1987) by Mary GENTLE, Saraband of Lost Time (1985) and its sequels by Richard GRANT, COURTSHIP RITE (1982) by Donald KINGSBURY, the Pern novels by Anne MCCAFFREY, Pennterra (1987) by Judith MOFFETT, the Starbridge Chronicles by Paul PARK, Lord Valentine's Castle (1980) and its sequels and The Face of the Waters (1991) by Robert SILVERBERG, and parts of Neverness (1988) by David ZINDELL. There are many more. [JC] PLANET EARTH Made-for-tv film (1974). ABC Dir Marc Daniels, starring John Saxon, Janet Margolin, Ted Cassidy, Diana Muldaur. Teleplay Gene RODDENBERRY, Juanita Bartlett. 75 mins. Colour.One of executive producer Roddenberry's several attempts to repeat the success of STAR TREK, this pilot for a proposed series - similar in concept to his earlier GENESIS II - failed to generate the necessary network enthusiasm. It is sf at its most simplistic. The hero and his companions are revived from SUSPENDED ANIMATION in a tribalized, post- HOLOCAUST 22nd century. In a wretchedly strained attempt at contemporary relevance, the party encounters a society of hostile militant women (who keep men as slaves) and, by saving them from dangerous mutants, proves to them that men can be useful. [JB/PN] PLANETE SAUVAGE, LA (vt Fantastic Planet) Animated film (1973). Les Films Armorial/ORTF/Filmove studio Barrandov. Dir Rene Laloux. Scenario and dialogue by Roland Topor (1938- ) and Laloux, based on Oms en serie ["Oms by the Dozen"] (1957) by Stefan WUL. Original artwork by Topor. 72 mins. Colour.The plot of this French/Czech coproduction is not original. Human beings on a distant planet are kept as pets by a race of blue, humanoid giants, but finally organize themselves into a guerrilla army and, despite the disparity in size, force their oppressors to recognize them as equals. The animation is not especially impressive in itself; what makes the film interesting is the bizarre, surreal background in which go about their sinister business such nightmarish creatures as the plant that spends its time swatting down small animals for fun, while giggling unpleasantly. The disturbing world shown in the background is at odds with the juvenile events of the story. [JB] PLANET OF BLOOD Roger CORMAN. PLANET OF HORRORS Roger CORMAN. PLANET OF STORMS PLANETA BUR. PLANET OF THE APES 1. Film (1968). Apjac/20th Century-Fox. Dir Franklin J. Schaffner, starring Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, James Whitmore. Screenplay Michael Wilson, Rod SERLING, based on La planete des singes (1963; trans as Planet of the Apes 1963 US) by Pierre BOULLE. 112 mins. Colour.Astronauts crashland on a planet where intelligent apes of three species rule over human savages. One astronaut is killed, one lobotomized, and the survivor (Heston) is put in a zoo. There follows a long middle sequence whose SATIRE, alternating between sharp and heavy-handed, suffers from an attempt to have it both ways: sometimes ape society - in its racism, its snobbery, its casual cruelty - is seen as a reflection of our own excesses; yet sometimes the humans are seen as crass and insensitive alongside the apes, who perhaps have made a better fist of things than we ever did ( APES AND CAVEMEN). After unsuccessfully trying to persuade his captors that he is an intelligent being, the astronaut is befriended by two chimpanzee scientists (McDowall and Hunter) who accept his story; with their help he escapes. The final sequence has him fleeing to the Forbidden Zone with a female "savage" and - in a wonderful image (perhaps inspired by Hubert ROGERS's cover for ASF Feb 1941) - coming across the half-buried Statue of Liberty projecting from a sandy beach. He realizes that he is still on Earth but in the FAR FUTURE, having unknowingly passed through a time-warp.The film is well directed, and the ape make-up by John Chambers is mobile and convincing, and deservedly won an Oscar. A commercial success, POTA was one of the 1968 films that made that year a turning point both for the increasing maturity of sf cinema and for its popularity. POTA inspired 4 sequels - BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES (1969), ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES (1971), CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES (1972) and BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (1973) - as well as 2 tv series, one live-action (see 2 below) and the other animated: Return to the Planet of the Apes, 13 20min episodes (1975). Books spun-off from the animated series include 3 published as by William Arrow, #1 and #3 being by William ROTSLER and #2 by Donald J. PFEIL: Visions from Nowhere * (1976), Escape from Terror Lagoon (1976) and Man, the Hunted Animal * (1976).2. US tv series (1974). 20th Century-Fox Television for CBS. Prod Stan Hough. Executive prod Herbert Hirschman. Starring Roddy McDowall, Ron Harper, James Naughton, Booth Colman, Mark Leonard. 1 season, 14 50min episodes. Colour. This spin-off was set in the same future world as the film (though its ethics were more black-and-white), with some episodes in the ancient subterranean ruins of BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES (1969). There were 4 books, all by George Alec EFFINGER, based on the tv series: Man the Fugitive * (1974), Escape to Tomorrow * (1975), Journey into Terror * (1975) and Lord of the Apes * (1976). [PN/JB] PLANET OF THE LIFELESS MEN Il PIANETA DEGLI UOMINI SPENTI. PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES TERRORE NELLO SPAZIO. PLANET OUTLAWS BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY. PLANETS ASTEROIDS; COLONIZATION OF OTHER WORLDS; JUPITER; LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS; LIVING WORLDS; MARS; MERCURY; OUTER PLANETS; PLANETARY ROMANCE; TERRAFORMING; VENUS. PLANET STORIES US PULP MAGAZINE. 71 issues. Winter 1939-Summer 1955, published by Love Romances Publishing Co.; ed Malcolm Reiss (Winter 1939-Summer 1942), Wilbur S. Peacock (1915?-1979) (Fall 1942-Fall 1945), Chester Whitehorn (Winter 1945-Summer 1946), Paul L. Payne (Fall 1946-Spring 1950), Jerome BIXBY (Summer 1950-July 1951), Malcolm Reiss (Sep 1951-Jan 1952), Jack O'Sullivan (Mar 1952-Summer 1955). (Reiss was always in control, however, acting as Managing Editor when he was not named as editor.) The schedule was quarterly Winter 1939-Fall 1950, bimonthly Nov 1950-Summer 1954, quarterly Fall 1954-Summer 1955.Subtitled in its early years "Strange Adventures on Other Worlds - The Universe of Future Centuries", PS was the epitome of PULP sf. Its covers were garish in the extreme, and its story titles promised extravagantly melodramatic interplanetary adventures (which the stories themselves frequently provided). A typical selection of featured stories (from 1947-8) includes "Beneath the Red World's Crust", "Black Priestess of Varda", "The Outcasts of Solar III", "Werwile of the Crystal Crypt", "Valkyrie from the Void" and "The Beast-Jewel of Mars", The authors of these epics include such PS regulars as Erik Fennel, Gardner F. FOX and Emmett McDowell; Fennel and McDowell, like Wilbur S. Peacock (?1915-1979), were frequent contributors whose magazine appearances were largely confined to PS. The magazine's artwork was mostly crude and lurid; A. LEYDENFROST was the most individual of its regular artists.Other authors who appeared often in later issues included Poul ANDERSON and Alfred COPPEL. The most popular contributor, and the one whose work characterizes PS's appeal at its best, was Leigh BRACKETT, with her many colourful PLANETARY ROMANCES of love and adventure on MARS and VENUS. PS's other short stories were more varied and less easily classifiable. All but one of the issues from which the story titles listed above were taken contained also short stories by Ray BRADBURY, including "Zero Hour" (Fall 1947) and "Mars is Heaven!" (Fall 1948). Later PS published Philip K. DICK's first story, "Beyond Lies the Wub" (July 1952). One of the many sf magazines to come into being around 1940, PS was one of the longest survivors, and one of the last sf pulps to continue in that format. A UK edition, published by Pemberton, consisted of 12 numbered, undated, truncated and initially irregular issues Mar 1950-Sep 1954. A Canadian edition published 12 issues, identical to the US issues, Fall 1948-Mar 1951.The reprint magazine TOPS IN SCIENCE FICTION (2 issues 1953) came from the same publisher and drew its material wholly from earlier issues of PS. The Best of Planet Stories I (anth 1975) ed Leigh Brackett, #1 in a book series that never had a #2, assembles 7 typical PS stories. [MJE] PLATO (c429-347 BC) Greek philosopher, included here partly because his dialogues Timaeus and its appendix Critias (c350 BC) have been taken as examples of PROTO SCIENCE FICTION in their references to the state of ATLANTIS and its sinking; additionally, and much more importantly, The Republic (undated, but earlier than Timaeus, which is in a sense its afterword) in part describes an ideal state, or UTOPIA, the first literary work to do so in any detail. P's importance to the history of utopian thought was absolutely central for more than 2000 years, but his emphasis on an ideal stasis over the constant changes and evolution of the sensual world was challenged in some 19th-century utopias, and of course runs absolutely counter to the social ideas of most 20th-century sf writers. Arthur C. CLARKE's The City and the Stars (1948; exp 1956) is effectively an attack on a Platonic utopia. P's disapproval of poetry in The Republic is a good example of his admonitory prescriptions, and his remarks on children's games in Book VII of The Laws (a late work) are even better: ". . . when innovations creep into their games and constant changes are made in them, the children cease to have a sure standard of what is right and proper. The person most highly esteemed by them is the one who introduces new devices in form or colour, or otherwise.There can be no worse evil for a city than this...Change...is most dangerous for a city." Nevertheless, P was one of the first philosophers at least to consider the idea of change, that the future could be better than the past - an imaginative leap ancestral to the whole of sf.P's famous metaphor of the cave reappears everywhere in sf, especially in stories of CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH: we are prisoners in a cave and take the flickering shadows cast by the firelight on the walls as reality; but the philosopher finds his way into the sunlight and sees that he has hitherto been deceived. [PN]See also: SOCIOLOGY; VIRTUAL REALITY. PLATONOV, ANDREY (PLATONOVICH) (1896-1951) Russian writer best known for his mainstream fiction. One of the most talented figures active in the first decades after the 1917 Revolution, he was regarded with suspicion by "official" literary critics and much of his work did not appear in RUSSIA until recently, including his two powerful fictional analyses of UTOPIA-building, Tchevengur (1928-29; trans Anthony Olcott 1978 US) and Kotlovan (trans as The Pit US). Lunnaia Bomb ["The Moon Bomb"] (1921), Potomki Solntsa ["The Sun Descendants"] (1926) and Efirnyi Trakt ["The Ether Road"] (written 1928-30; 1967) are good examples of the HARD SF of the period, although they are marked by AP's uniquely sophisticated language and by some unusual anticipations, including future "machineless" technologies with "herds of electrons, bred like domestic animals". [VG]See also: RUSSIA. PLATT, CHARLES (MICHAEL) (1945- ) UK-born writer and editor, in the USA from 1970, who began publishing sf with "One of Those Days" for Science Fantasy in 1964 and soon became associated with NEW WORLDS during the period when, under Michael MOORCOCK's editorship, it was seen as the pre-eminent NEW-WAVE journal. CP performed various editorial functions for several years, becoming editor in 1970 after Moorcock stepped down, and, of the NW anthology series, co-editing with Moorcock #6 (1973; vt New Worlds Quarterly #5 1974 US) and with Hilary BAILEY #7 (1974; vt as #6 1975 US). CP's first novel, serialized the previous year in NW, was Garbage World (1967 US), in which sf premise and scatological humour sometimes war - for instance, the ASTEROID of the title, used as a garbage dump, is called Kopra. Planet of the Voles (1971) is a confused SPACE OPERA, but The City Dwellers (1970 UK; rev vt Twilight of the City 1977 US) is, in its heavily revised version, a substantial NEAR-FUTURE look at the death of New York and of a crisis-ridden USA surrounding it. From the first, CP's work demonstrated undeviating clarity, PULP-MAGAZINE plotting instincts, and a sure inclination to offend. The Gas (1970), which has a genuine sf premise, treats its SEX material in pornographic terms. The Image Job (1971 UK) and The Power and the Pain (1971 UK) are pornography with marginal sf elements. A Song for Christina (1976) as by Blakely St James (a Playboy Press house name) has no genre content, though Christina Enchanted (1980), also as by St James, uses sf arguments to underpin an occult hoax; a third St James volume, Christina's Touch (1981), once again has no genre content. In the early 1980s CP wrote little sf, concentrating his activities in the field on The Patchin Review (June 1981-March 1985), a journal of comment, sometimes controversial, of which he edited and wrote significant portions. A successor journal, REM (July 1985-December 1987), after 10 issues became Science Fiction Guide (occasionally from March 1988; though none has appeared since 1989, the journal has not been officially terminated). CP had written FANZINES during his involvement in UK fandom in the 1960s; these later journals, however, were notable for a rigorous concentration upon literary issues (and scandals), and should not perhaps be categorized as fanzines. During these years CP also published Dream Makers: The Uncommon People who Write Science Fiction (coll 1980; exp vt Who Writes Science Fiction? 1980 UK) and Dream Makers, Volume II (coll 1983), a revised selection from both volumes being published as Dream Makers: SF and Fantasy Writers at Work (coll 1986); the interviews here collected were polished and showed an attentive, surprisingly sympathetic mind at work.CP then returned to active sf writing with Less than Human (1986 as by Robert Clarke; 1987 UK as CP), the comic tale of an ANDROID's descent upon New York, Free Zone (1988), a novel which hilariously makes use of almost every sf theme and instrument yet devised (a chart was provided) to tell a pixilated tale of urban anarchy and dreadful threat, and The Silicon Man (1991), a HARD-SF perusal of the implications of CYBERPUNK in which the sense of what it means actually to become information (in CP's terms an infomorph) is chillingly and at points bracingly examined.With the possible exception of this last book, it cannot be claimed that CP is a warm writer, or that he generally finds a narrative structure fit to convey the rigour of his thinking. But sf as a genre is naggingly short of genuine iconoclasts: CP is therefore a necessary writer. [JC]Other works: Sweet Evil (1977); Love's Savage Embrace (1981) as by Charlotte Prentiss, associational; Tease for Two (1983) and Double Delight (1983), both as by Aston Cantwell, both associational; two Chthon ties, Piers Anthony's Worlds of Chthon: Plasm * (1987) and Piers Anthony's Worlds of Chthon: Soma * (1988).Nonfiction: Micromania: The Whole-Truth Home Computer Handbook (1984; rev by David LANGFORD, vt Micromania 1984 UK); How to be a Happy Cat (1986 UK) with Gray Joliffe; When You Can Live Twice as Long, What Will You Do? (1989), a sequence of questions based upon sf-oriented visions of the near future.See also: CITIES; DISASTER; GAMES WORKSHOP; INTERZONE; MUSIC; PERCEPTION; POLLUTION; WOMEN SF WRITERS. PLAUGER, P(HILLIP) J(AMES) (1944- ) US writer and physicist, involved professionally in computers. He began publishing sf with "Epicycle" for ASF in 1973, being best known for "Child of All Ages" (1975), about an immortal woman ( IMMORTALITY) who perpetually retains the body of a child; he won the JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARD for Best New Author in 1975. The novel-length "Fighting Madness" (in Ben BOVA's Analog Annual, anth 1976) remains unpublished in book form. [JC/PN] PLESKAC, KAREL [r] CZECH AND SLOVAK SF. PLOWRIGHT, TERESA (1952- ) Canadian writer who began publishing sf with Dreams of an Unseen Planet (1986 US; rev 1989 Canada), in which three human colony ships, having escaped an Earth near terminal ecological collapse, orbit a sentient planet called Gaea, where difficulties soon ensue. The tale, heavily burdened with symbols and a selfconsciously significant prose, climaxes in the realization that the planet needs humans and humans need the planet for either species to reproduce and therefore survive. [JC] PLUTO OUTER PLANETS. POCKET UNIVERSE It might be said that the inhabitant of any constricted environment lives in a pocket universe, whether as a child, a prisoner, a victim of dementia, a chained watcher in Plato's cave, a resident of Hell or an inhabitant of the world inside Pantagruel's mouth. It might also be suggested that the dynamic moment of escape from confinement - a leitmotiv of Western literature - always marks the transition from a pocket universe to a fuller and more real world. When Huck, in the final pages of Mark TWAIN's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1883 UK), decides "to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest", the Hannibal from which he escapes - with its rigid social organization and its conservative inwardness of gaze - has many of the psychological characteristics of the pocket universe as found in sf. The classic movement of the sf tale is of course outward - via CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGHS and all the other forms of initiation or unshackling - and in that sense most sf works contain some sort of pocket universe, implied or explicit, which initially binds and blinds the protagonist, and from which it is necessary to escape.The term should perhaps, therefore, be confined to two usages, one broad, the other narrower. It can be used broadly to describe an actual miniature universe pocketed within a larger explanatory frame or device - like the various godling-crafted worlds nesting within one another in Philip Jose FARMER's World of Tiers sequence; or like the set-ups in almost any of Jack L. CHALKER's series (e.g., the Well World sequence and the Four Lords of the Diamond tetralogy) which feature universes constructed by godlike beings as gamelike contrivances and inhabited by victim-players who must solve their universe to escape from it; or like similar 1950s set-ups (see PARANOIA) such as in Frederik POHL's "The Tunnel under the World" (1955) or Philip K. DICK's Time Out of Joint (1958), whose protagonists are victims of artificial worlds shaped to delude and manipulate them; or (again trivially) like any fantasy game which involves role-playing within a VIRTUAL-REALITY world; or in fact like any world (such as that on which John CROWLEY's The Deep [1975] is set, or Terry PRATCHETT's Discworld) whose origins and extent reflect a sense of constraining artifice. But none of these applications contains the one essential element that defines the true pocket-universe tale: Farmer's and Chalker's protagonists may not know the nature of the worlds in which they find themselves, but they do know that they are inhabiting some form of construct. In the pocket-universe tale as more narrowly defined, the world initially perceived seems to be the entire world, and the web of taboos preventing the truth about its partial nature being known is structurally very similar to the parental restrictions which initially hamper the move through puberty into adulthood of the young protagonists of most non-genre juveniles. It could, indeed, be argued that this move through puberty is a particular example of the conceptual breakthrough which arguably structures all genuine sf.The classic GENERATION-STARSHIP tale is one in which the descendants of the original crew members have forgotten the true nature of things and have instituted a repressive, TABOO-governed society which suppresses any attempt to discover the truth; it is the task of the young protagonist to break through the social and epistemological barriers stifling this world while at the same time successfully managing puberty. The pure generation-starship story embodies, therefore, the purest form of the concept of the pocket universe. Examples of that pure form, though central to sf, are not numerous - Robert A. HEINLEIN's Universe (1941 ASF; 1951 chap) is the most famous in the list, which includes also Brian W. ALDISS's Non-Stop (1958; vt Starship 1959 US) and Harry HARRISON's Captive Universe (1969); but Alexei PANSHIN's RITE OF PASSAGE (1968), for instance, though explicitly a tale of puberty, does not suggest that there is any epistemological mystery about the nature of the asteroid-sized starship from which its heroine must escape.All post- HOLOCAUST tales in which the descendants of survivors live in underground habitats which they think to be the whole of reality are pocket-universe stories. The best of them is perhaps Daniel F. GALOUYE's Dark Universe (1961), though Margaret ST CLAIR's Sign of the Labrys (1963) and The Shadow People (1969) play fruitfully with the concept, as do Richard COWPER's Kuldesak (1972), Roger ELDRIDGE's The Shadow of the Gloom-World (1977) and many others. In all these stories, the essential movement is from childhood constriction and taboo-driven ignorance to adult freedom and breakthrough, though the protagonist of Gene WOLFE's Darkside the Long Sun (1993) is, unusually, an adult from the very beginning of his long adventure in truth-seeking; in GENRE SF it is only more recently that ironies have significantly pervaded this pattern, as in David LAKE's Ring of Truth (1983), where a traditional enclosed world turns out to be interminably extensive, so that there is, in fact, no exit. In the great pocket-universe stories, however, there is always an out, a SENSE OF WONDER, a new world opening before the opened eyes. [JC]See also: GODS AND DEMONS. POE, EDGAR ALLAN (1809-1849) US writer, a major figure in US literature and a pioneer of sf. "By 'scientifiction'," wrote Hugo GERNSBACK, "I mean the Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Edgar Allan Poe type of story." As a poet, short-story writer and critic, EAP's influence on world literature has been enormous, though he spent most of his career in the cut-throat world of magazine publishing. He is usually credited as an originator of the detective story and the horror story, an innovator in the areas of psychological realism and poetic form, as well as a precursor of the New Criticism and a strong influence on the French Symbolist movement. In recent years his works have been closely associated with various structuralist and deconstructuralist approaches to literature.Among French appreciators of EAP was Jules VERNE, who found in certain of his pieces a basis for his own "nuts-and-bolts" sf - "The Balloon Hoax" (1844), for example, inspired both Cinq semaines en ballon (1863; trans as Five Weeks in a Balloon 1869 US) and Le tour du monde en quatre-vingt jours (1873; trans as Around the World in Eighty Days 1874 US) - but it should be emphasized that in EAP's context much of the scientific underpinning is of a deliberately specious, hoaxing nature. Another writer of HARD SF, Isaac ASIMOV, created the kind of amalgam between sf and detective fiction that EAP's work anticipated; but something of the more central, metaphysical and visionary aspect of EAP's writing is captured by two different disciples: H.P. LOVECRAFT and Ray BRADBURY. Paul Valery (1871-1945) defined EAP's sf when he observed: "Poe was opening up a way, teaching a very strict and deeply alluring doctrine, in which a kind of mathematics and a kind of mysticism became one ..." What EAP referred to as "the Calculus of Probabilities", a species of extrapolation in which he and his detective hero, Dupin, were expert, calls for the combined talents of the mathematician and the poet.EAP's corpus is very much of a piece, and to isolate his sf would be significantly to distort both the whole and the part. In fact, no single work can be satisfactorily categorized as sf in any conventional sense - for one thing, the hoaxing quality of many of the tales detracts from the necessary illusion of verisimilitude - but at the same time the underlying rationale is marginally sciencefictional, and by that token so is everything EAP wrote.EAP assumed that the fabric of "reality" constituted a "grotesque" deception imposed by limitations of time and space and by such personal impediments as human reason. This revelation and the concomitant awareness of what may be the true "arabesque" nature of a unified reality are available only to the perspective provided by the "half-closed eye" of the imagination or, in the later works, of intuition. EAP makes clear in "Mesmeric Revelation" (1844; rev 1845) that this visionary arabesque reality is of a material, not a spiritual, nature. It is equivalent to the alternative or additional DIMENSIONS of sf and may be apprehended by strategies which constitute EAP's version of the spacetime warp. The dizzying sensation experienced on entering an EAP room, typically containing a luridly lit, kaleidoscopically fluid assemblage of arabesque furnishings, or in the process of literally falling in such tales as "A Descent into the Maelstrom" (1841), will effect the transition. In the case of most visionary or mystical literature, the experience of a transcendent reality depends upon personal volition (an unreliable programme of fasting or praying) or divine intervention. In EAP's case, as in sf, natural phenomena may effect the transition accidentally, and the conditions of such phenomena may be mechanically duplicated.There is a further sense in which all of EAP's work may be regarded as marginal sf. The COSMOLOGY embodied in the late summational treatise Eureka (1848) - a scheme of remarkable prescience (to the point of explaining BLACK HOLES) which has some parallel and perhaps conscious development in the speculation of such writers as Olaf STAPLEDON, George Bernard SHAW and Arthur C. CLARKE - is variously anticipated, whether directly, rhythmically or symbolically, in virtually everything he wrote. To this extent, for example, "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839) and the sea tales may be regarded as displaced versions of a kind of literalistic sf, if Eureka (which EAP called a "romance" or a "poem") may be described as that. In Eureka the movement from a grotesque, deceptive "reality" to arabesque reality is correlated with the history of the Universe moving from its present diastolic state of dispersion to a glorious future state of centripetal collapse into a primal unity, an "Overmind".Although none of EAP's compositions can be fully accounted for by the sf label, some do come closer than others in that they contain specific sf elements. Three poems merit consideration. "Al Aaraaf" (1829; rev 1831; rev 1845), with its astronomical setting and the apparent destruction of the planet Earth, might be related to the post-apocalyptic prose of "The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion" (1839), in which Earth is destroyed by fire when raped of nitrogen by a passing comet (cf H.G. WELLS's "The Star" [1897] and In the Days of the Comet [1906]). (EAP's "Shadow - A Parable" [1835] and "The Colloquy of Monos and Una" [1841] are similarly metaphysical pieces.) A second poem, "The City in the Sea" (1831; rev 1845), is related to various sf-like sunken-city myths. "Ulalume" (1847) makes use of astrology and, to that degree, relates to EAP's use of other PSEUDO-SCIENCES in some of his most sciencefictional tales: mesmerism in "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains" (1844), in "Mesmeric Revelation" (1844) and in "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" (1845), and alchemy in "Von Kempelen and his Discovery" (1849). The automaton chess-player invented by (the real-life) Baron von Kempelen and probed by EAP in his essay "Maelzel's Chess-Player" (1836) might be linked tenuously to the ROBOTS of sf, while "The Man that was Used Up" (1839) presents a part-human, part-machine being something like a CYBORG. "The Masque of the Red Death" (1842) has humankind destroyed by plague, as in Mary SHELLEY's The Last Man (1826) ( END OF THE WORLD).EAP's sea voyages, especially "MS. Found in a Bottle" (1833) and The Narrative of A. Gordon Pym (1837), seem ultimately oriented towards a HOLLOW EARTH (like Captain Adam SEABORN's Symzonia [1820]). EAP's latter unfinished story was "completed" by various hands: by Jules Verne in Le sphinx des glaces (1897; trans as An Antarctic Mystery 1898 UK), by Charles Romyn DAKE in A Strange Discovery (1899), by H.P. LOVECRAFT in "At the Mountains of Madness" (1936) and by Dominique Andre in Conquete de l'Eternal ["The Conquest of the Eternal"] (1947). The most ambitious of the BALLOON tales, "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall" (1835; rev 1840), is clearly oriented towards outer space; if taken literally, it is an early example of a MOON voyage. Another balloon story and another hoax, "Mellonta Tauta" (1849; the title is Greek for "these things are in the future"), might better be considered as one of the three tales that experiment with the theme of time displacement. "The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade" (1845), "Some Words with a Mummy" (1845), a reanimation story, and "Mellonta Tauta" demonstrate the inaccuracy of past conceptions of the future, present conceptions of the past and future conceptions of the present, respectively; "Mellonta Tauta" itself presents a UTOPIA as a DYSTOPIA, bears on the theme of OVERPOPULATION, and is among the first of such works to open directly in a future environment.Nearly all the above stories and the essay Eureka, but not the poems, appear in The Science Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe (coll 1976) ed Harold Beaver, which has an interesting introduction and commentary. Beaver also ed a companion volume, the Penguin Books edition of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1975).A great many of EAP's stories have been filmed, most famously and prolifically by Roger CORMAN. [DK]About the author: "Edgar Allan Poe - Science Fiction Pioneer" by Clarke Olney in Georgia Review #12, 1958; "The Prophetic Edgar Allan Poe" in Explorers of the Infinite (coll 1963) by Sam MOSKOWITZ; "Edgar Allan Poe and Science Fiction" in Future Perfect: American Science Fiction of the Nineteenth Century (anth 1966) ed H. Bruce FRANKLIN; "The Influence of Poe on Jules Verne" by Monique Sprout in Revue de Litterature Comparee #41, 1967; "Edgar Allan Poe and the Visionary Tradition of Science Fiction" in New Worlds for Old: The Apocalyptic Imagination, Science Fiction, and American Literature (1974) by David KETTERER; "Poe, Edgar Allan" in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy, vol 2 (1978) by Donald H. TUCK; "The SF Element in the Work of Poe: A Chronological Survey" by David Ketterer, SCIENCE-FICTION STUDIES #1, 1974; "Edgar Allan Poe" by E.F. BLEILER in Science Fiction Writers: Critical Studies of the Major Authors from the Early Nineteenth Century to the Present Day (1982) ed E.F. Bleiler; "'Something Monomaniacal': Edgar Allan Poe" in Trillion Year Spree (1986) by Brian W. ALDISS and David WINGROVE; the discussion of Poe in The Place of Fiction in the Time of Science: A Disciplinary History of American Writing (1990) by John Limon.See also: APES AND CAVEMEN (IN THE HUMAN WORLD); ASTRONOMY; DEFINITIONS OF SF; GOTHIC SF; HISTORY OF SF; HORROR IN SF; MEDICINE; MONEY; NEW WAVE; PROTO SCIENCE FICTION; PSYCHOLOGY; SPACE FLIGHT; SPACESHIPS; SUSPENDED ANIMATION; TIME TRAVEL. POETRY Before about 1965 - although much earlier Lilith LORRAINE had published Wine of Wonder (coll 1951 chap), which she advertised as being the first volume of poetry devoted to sf - only isolated examples of sf poetry appeared in magazines like Unknown and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Yet now poetry appears regularly in SF MAGAZINES, anthologies and author collections. This change can be attributed to two separate periods of activity. The first centred on NEW WORLDS (NW) and the NEW-WAVE writers in the UK during the late 1960s. NW published a classic poem during this time, "The Head-Rape" (1968) by D.M. THOMAS. In 1979 Edward Lucie-Smith (1933- ) anthologized this and other excellent poems like Edwin Morgan's "In Sobieski's Shield" and Thomas M. DISCH's "A Vacation on Earth" in Holding Your Eight Hands (HYEH) (anth 1969 UK), the first anthology of sf poetry. HYEH was followed closely by 2 other all-poetry anthologies, Frontier of Going (FG) (anth 1969 UK) ed John Fairfax and Inside Outer Space (IOS) (anth 1970 US) ed Robert Vas Dias. FG and IOS were not sf per se but celebrations of SPACE FLIGHT and the Universe inspired by the Soviet/US space race and the unique lexicon of terms, and dreams, it engendered. Also notable were the infusion of a quantity of poetry into the text of Brian W. ALDISS's novel Barefoot in the Head (1969) and the book-length poem Aniara (1956 Sweden; trans 1963) by the Swedish poet Harry MARTINSON.A decade after HYEH, intense poetic activity in the USA centred on the founding in 1978 of the Rhysling AWARDS (RA) for best sf poetry and their parent association, the Science Fiction Poetry Association, which was founded by Suzette Haden ELGIN. From the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, poets emerged who wrote a large body of their work within the genre, including in the USA Andrew Joron, Peter Dillingham, Kathy Rantala, Bruce BOSTON, Sonya DORMAN, Gene Van Troyer, Duane Ackerson, Terry A. Garey and Robert FRAZIER, as well as the UK's Steve Sneyd and Andrew Darlington. Established sf writers published a good deal of poetry - Ursula K. LE GUIN, Michael BISHOP, Ray BRADBURY, Jane YOLEN, Joe HALDEMAN and others - and poets from the mainstream crossed over: Dick Allen, Marge PIERCY, William Stafford, Tom Whalen and Marilyn Hacker (1942- ). During this time, many magazines started to feature the growing genre on a regular basis. Night Cry (NC) used horror poetry, while the science magazine Science (SC) prominently featured one factual poem per issue. AMAZING STORIES and ISAAC ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE have often used two or more poems an issue. IASFM featured excellent sf poetry, like the Rhysling winners "The Migration of Darkness" (1979) by Peter Payack and "For Spacers Snarled in the Hair of Comets" (1984) by Bruce Boston; while literary magazines like Speculative Poetry Review, Velocities (V), Uranus, Ice River, Umbral (UM), Star*Line (S*L), The Magazine of Speculative Poetry and the UK's Star Wine devoted themselves to fantastic poetry of all kinds.Fantastic poetry generally falls into 4 types: sf, as in Susan Palwick's "The Neighbor's Wife" (1985 AMZ) (RA), wherein a widowed man nurses a very alien woman to health and accepts her for a wife; science fact, as in Diane Ackerman's "Saturn" from her book The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral (1976), a long work often quoted by Carl SAGAN in his science books; macabre, as in Lucius SHEPARD's "White Trains" (1987 NC) (RA), about mirage-like trains that pass certain towns on the outskirts of their private mythologies; and speculative poetry, a catchall term for poems on the periphery of the fantastic, as in Joe Haldeman's almost otherworldly vision of Vietnam in "DX" (1987) or the surreal poetry of Ivan Arguelles.Other classic works include: "The Sonic Flowerfall of Primes" (1982 NW) (RA) and "Antenna" (1989) by Andrew Joron, with their hard-science surrealism; "The Nightmare Collector" (1987 NC) (RA) by Bruce Boston; "The Well of Baln" (1981) by Ursula K. Le Guin; "Corruption of Metals" (1977) (RA) by Sonya Dorman; "Two Sonnets" (1983 SC) by Helen Ehrlich; "Your Time and You" (1982 V) (RA) by Adam Cornford; "The Still Point" (1984 IASFM) by David Lunde; "Ybba" (1983 S*L) by Elissa Malcohn; "Lady Faustus" (1982 UM) by Diane Ackerman; and the World Fantasy Award-winning "Winter Solstice, Camelot Station" by John M. FORD (1988). Many of these recent works are anthologized in The Umbral Anthology (anth 1982) ed Steve Rasnic Tem, Burning with a Vision (anth 1984) ed Robert Frazier and Songs of Unsung Worlds (anth 1985) ed Bonnie Gordon. Also of great importance is the book-length THE NEW WORLD: AN EPIC POEM (1985) by Frederick TURNER.Several anthologies of mostly original poetry made impressions around the cusp of the 1990s: the award-winning Poly: New Speculative Writing (anth 1989) ed Lee Ballentine (1954- ), Narcopolis & Other Poems (anth 1989 chap) ed Peggy Nadramia and Time Frames (anth 1991) ed Terry A. Garey. The poet Scott Green has compiled an invaluable guide, Contemporary Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Poetry: A Resource Guide and Biographical Dictionary (1989).Star*Line, The Magazine of Speculative Poetry and Velocities continue, along with newcomer Dreams & Nightmares, as strong poetry magazines. Ocean View Press, publisher of Poly, produces poetry collections by many of the authors mentioned here. And a large wave of fresh poets promises all the right stuff for the 1990s-people like Denise Dumars, Michael R. COLLINGS, W. Gregory Stewart, David Kopaska-Merkel, t. (not T.) Winter-Damon, Ann K. Schwader, Roger Dutcher, Wendy Rathbone, Tom Wiloch, Terry McGarry, Sandra Lindow, Tony Daniel and Wayne Allen Sallee. [RF] POGUE, BILL [r] Ben BOVA. POHL, CAROL [r] Frederik POHL. POHL, FREDERIK (1919- ) US writer, professionally involved in the sf field as an editor, agent and writer since his teens, his first published piece being a poem, "Elegy to a Dead Satellite: Luna" as by Elton V. Andrews, for AMZ in 1937, and his first story proper being "Before the Universe" with C. M. KORNBLUTH, both writing as S.D. Gottesman, for Super Science Stories in 1940. His 3rd marriage was to sf writer Judith MERRIL (1949-52) and his 4th to Carol Metcal Ulf (1952-82), who collaborated with him in editing several anthologies. His 5th and present wife, Elizabeth Anne Hull (married 1984), is an academic and a leading member of the SCIENCE FICTION RESEARCH ASSOCIATION. FP was a member of the FUTURIANS, and wrote much of his early work in collaboration with other members of the group, mostly with C.M. Kornbluth. Names used by these two, sometimes involving third parties (including Robert A.W. LOWNDES and Joseph H. Dockweiler), were S.D. Gottesman (see above), Scott Mariner, Dirk WYLIE and the house name Paul Dennis Lavond. On his early solo work FP usually used the name James MacCreigh, though he published 1 story each as Wylie and Warren F. Howard. He published much of this work himself while editing ASTONISHING STORIES and SUPER SCIENCE STORIES Spring 1940-Fall 1941; he was then assistant editor to Alden Norton on these magazines from late 1941 until their demise in 1943. After WWII he worked as an sf literary agent; he represented many of the most celebrated writers in the field during the late 1940s. He began writing again, abandoning the MacCreigh pseudonym, in 1953, by which time he had used his own name on the first of a new set of collaborations with Kornbluth, the classic THE SPACE MERCHANTS (1952 Gal as "Gravy Planet"; 1953). While working as assistant editor to H.L. GOLD at GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION he wrote a great deal for the magazine, sometimes as Paul Flehr, Ernst Mason or Charles SATTERFIELD, the last once used for a story written in collaboration with Lester DEL REY, in partnership with whom he also wrote Preferred Risk (1955) as Edson MCCANN. Other writers with whom he collaborated at one time or another were Merril, Isaac ASIMOV and Joseph SAMACHSON, and he built up a second long-term partnership with Jack WILLIAMSON. FP was editor of Gal and IF from late 1961 to mid-1969. While under his aegis If won 3 HUGOS as Best Magazine 1966-8. He also founded and edited 2 shorter-lived magazines, WORLDS OF TOMORROW (1963-7) and INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE FICTION (1967-8). Another significant editorial endeavour was an early series of original ANTHOLOGIES, STAR SCIENCE FICTION STORIES: Star Science Fiction Stories (anth 1953), #2 (anth 1954), #3 (anth 1955), #4 (anth 1958), #5 (anth 1959) and #6 (anth 1959), along with a volume of longer stories, Star Short Novels (1954). He has also ed numerous reprint anthologies.As a writer FP made his first reputation by way of slickly ironic short stories, mostly SATIRES with a hint of black comedy. Works in this vein include the classics "The Midas Plague" (1954; incorporated into Midas World, fixup 1983) and "The Tunnel Under the World" (1955); almost all these stories of the 1950s are collected in Alternating Currents (coll 1956; with 1 story dropped and 1 added, rev 1966 US), The Case Against Tomorrow (coll 1957), Tomorrow Times Seven (coll 1959), The Man who Ate the World (coll 1960), Turn Left at Thursday (coll 1961) and The Abominable Earthman (coll 1963). Oddly, the only short-fiction award FP won before his 1986 Hugo for "Fermi and Frost" was a Hugo for an atypical "posthumous collaboration" with Kornbluth, "The Meeting" (1972), which appeared in Critical Mass (coll 1977) with Kornbluth; some of their collaborations had already been assembled as The Wonder Effect (coll 1962), and further selections appeared as Before the Universe, and Other Stories (coll 1980) and Our Best: The Best of Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth (coll 1987). FP's early solo novels were less successful: Slave Ship (1957), Drunkard's Walk (1960), A Plague of Pythons (1965; rev vt Demon in the Skull 1984) and The Age of the Pussyfoot (1969) lack the vitality of his collaborations with Kornbluth. The gaudy image of a future dominated by advertising painted in THE SPACE MERCHANTS now seems remarkably prescient ( MEDIA LANDSCAPE) - although FP's solo sequel, The Merchants' War (1984), was unfortunately belated; both novels were assembled as Venus, Inc (omni 1985). Gladiator-at-Law (1955; rev 1986) with Kornbluth is sillier, but makes some telling comments on housing projects ( CRIME AND PUNISHMENT). The episodic Search the Sky (1954; rev 1985) with Kornbluth is an enjoyable early contribution to the "absurd-society" variety of sf. The more ambitious and surrealistically complicated Wolfbane (1959; rev 1986) with Kornbluth involves invading alien robots, the kidnapping of the planet Earth, subsequent primitive societies engineered to provide human components for living MACHINES on the aliens' own dirigible planet, and a revolt organized by these.FP's early collaborations with Jack Williamson were the Undersea juveniles - Undersea Quest (1954), Undersea Fleet (1955) and Undersea City (1958) ( UNDER THE SEA) - and the Starchild novels, assembled as The Starchild Trilogy (omni 1977): The Reefs of Space (1964), Starchild (1965) and Rogue Star (1969). The latter are intelligent SPACE OPERAS combining Williamson's flair for melodrama with FP's economy of style. As FP's solo work has matured, so has his collaborative work with Williamson. The Saga of Cuckoo - Farthest Star (fixup 1975) and Wall Around a Star (1983), assembled as The Saga of Cuckoo (omni 1983) - is action-adventure fiction involving a vast artificial world. Land's End (1988) confronts the human survivors of a cosmic DISASTER with a godlike ALIEN. The Singers of Time (1991) is an excellent fusion of traditional space opera with modern ideas in PHYSICS.There was a sharp improvement in FP's longer works once he was no longer editing full time. Two fine novellas, "The Gold at the Starbow's End" (1971; exp vt Starburst 1982) and "The Merchants of Venus" (1971), were important transitional works, the latter forming a prelude to the enterprising Heechee series - GATEWAY (1977), Beyond the Blue Event Horizon (1980), Heechee Rendezvous (1984), The Annals of the Heechee (1987) and The Gateway Trip (coll of linked stories 1990) - which tracks humanity's exploration of the Galaxy using artefacts abandoned by aliens who have gone into hiding because of a threat posed to all living species by the enigmatic Assassins. GATEWAY won the Hugo, NEBULA and JOHN W. CAMPBELL MEMORIAL AWARD, following up the success of MAN PLUS (1976), an effectively cynical novel about the adaptation of a man for life on MARS which had won a Nebula the year before ( PANTROPY); the rather less impressive sequel is Mars Plus (1994) with Thomas T. THOMAS. JEM: The Making of a Utopia (1979) is a similarly cynical and compelling account of the COLONIZATION of an alien world - which somewhat resembles the eponymous planet in Medea's World (anth 1985) ed Harlan ELLISON - by competing human power blocs, but the more lightly satirical The Cool War (1981) is less successful. Syzygy (1982), a mundane novel about the failure of a much-touted catastrophe to overwhelm California as a result of a rare alignment of planets, understandably suffers from a lack of melodrama - an absence made good in two later non-sf novels, the thriller Terror (1986) and the "drama-documentary" novel Chernobyl (1987). FP has occasionally complained about the unwillingness of sf writers to be constructive in their dealings with NEAR-FUTURE scenarios, and he made a sustained attempt to practise what he preached in The Years of the City (fixup 1984), a future history of the City of New York. The Coming of the Quantum Cats (1986) is an ALTERNATE-WORLD adventure story only lightly seasoned with satire, but a more considerable satirical edge is evident in Black Star Rising (1985), Narabedla Ltd (1988) and the sharply pointed The Day the Martians Came (fixup 1988). Homegoing (1989) is a more romantic and light-hearted story of confrontation between humans and aliens. The World at the End of Time (1990) recalls the theme of Land's End in presenting a human colony's encounter with a godlike alien in a tale which traverses eons to the time and location referred to in the title; while the novella Outnumbering the Dead (1990 UK) focuses on the predicament of a man who is among the very few who age and die in a world of youthful-seeming immortals ( IMMORTALITY).FP was president of the SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA 1974-6 and president of WORLD SF 1980-82. Much insight into the early days of his career is provided by the commentary in The Early Pohl (coll 1976), much of which was subsequently incorporated into The Way the Future Was: A Memoir (1978). The special Sep 1973 issue of The MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION was devoted to his work. In 1993 he was granted the Nebula Grand Master award. [BS]Other works: Digits and Dastards (coll 1966); The Frederik Pohl Omnibus (coll 1966; vt Survival Kit 1979); Day Million (coll 1970); The Gold at the Starbow's End (coll 1972); The Best of Frederik Pohl (coll 1975); In the Problem Pit (coll 1976); Planets Three (coll 1982); Pohlstars (coll 1984); BiPohl (coll 1987); Stopping at Slowyear (1991); Mining the Oort (1992); The Voices of Heaven (1994).Nonfiction: Science Fiction: Studies in Film (1981) with Frederik Pohl IV; Our Angry Earth (1991) with Isaac ASIMOV.As Editor: Beyond the End of Time (anth 1952); Shadow of Tomorrow (anth 1953); Assignment in Tomorrow (anth 1954); Star of Stars (anth 1960; vt Stars Fourteen UK); several Galaxy anthologies, including Time Waits for Winthrop and Four other Short Novels from Galaxy (anth 1962), The Seventh Galaxy Reader (anth 1964), The Eighth Galaxy Reader (anth 1965), The Ninth Galaxy Reader (anth 1966), The Tenth Galaxy Reader (anth 1967; vt Door to Anywhere 1970), The Eleventh Galaxy Reader (anth 1969) and Galaxy: Thirty Years of Innovative Science Fiction (anth 1980) with Martin H. GREENBERG and Joseph D. OLANDER; The Expert Dreamers (anth 1962), sf stories by SCIENTISTS; The Best Science Fiction from Worlds of Tomorrow (anth 1964); three If anthologies, being The If Reader (anth 1966), The Second If Reader (anth 1967) and Worlds of If (anth 1986); Nightmare Age (anth 1970); Best Science Fiction for 1972 (anth 1972); Jupiter (anth 1973) with Carol Pohl; Science Fiction: The Great Years (anth 1973) and Science Fiction: The Great Years: Volume II (anth 1976), both with Carol Pohl; The Science Fiction Roll of Honor (anth 1975); Science Fiction Discoveries (anth 1976) with Carol Pohl; The Best of Cyril M. Kornbluth (coll 1976); Science Fiction of the '40s (anth 1978) with Greenberg and Olander; Nebula Winners 14 (anth 1980); The Great Science Fiction Series (anth 1980) with Greenberg and Olander; Yesterday's Tomorrows: Favorite Stories from Forty Years as a Science Fiction Editor (anth 1982); Tales from the Planet Earth (anth 1986).About the author: Frederik Pohl, Merchant of Excellence: A Working Bibliography (1989) by Gordon BENSON Jr and Phil STEPHENSEN-PAYNE. See also: ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN SF; ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION; AUTOMATION; BLACK HOLES; CITIES; COMPUTERS; CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH; CORPSICLE; CRYONICS; CYBERNETICS; CYBORGS; DEL REY BOOKS; DIMENSIONS; DISCOVERY AND INVENTION; DYSTOPIAS; ECONOMICS; END OF THE WORLD; EVOLUTION; FANDOM; FASTER THAN LIGHT; GAMES AND SPORTS; GOLDEN AGE OF SF; GREAT AND SMALL; HISTORY IN SF; HISTORY OF SF; HUMOUR; HYPERSPACE; ISAAC ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE; LEISURE; LINGUISTICS; LIVING WORLDS; MATHEMATICS; MONEY; NEW WAVE; NUCLEAR POWER; OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM; OUTER PLANETS; OVERPOPULATION; PARALLEL WORLDS; PARANOIA; POLITICS; POWER SOURCES; PSI POWERS; Julius SCHWARTZ; SF MAGAZINES; SOCIOLOGY; SPACESHIPS; STARS; TERRAFORMING; UTOPIAS; VENUS; WEAPONS; WRITERS OF THE FUTURE CONTEST. POLAND Polish sf effectively began with the publication in 1785 of the novel Wojciech Zdarzynski, zycie i przypadki swoje opisujacy ["Wojciech Zdarzynski, Describing his Life and Adventures"] (1785) by the Reverend Michal Dymitr Krajewski. This describes the civilizations of the Moon.Between then and WWII, Polish sf had, in terms of literary quality, at least 4 major landmarks. (1) In 1804 Jan Potocki (1761-1815) published (in French) Manuscrit trouve a Saragosse (2 vols 1804 and 1805 Russia and 1 vol 1813 France; exp 1847 as Rekopis znaleziony w Saragossie Poland; cut trans as The Saragossa Manuscript, ed Roger Caillois 1960 US). This extraordinary work - more fantasy than sf - is a well written and witty novel, a prolonged and vivid joke made by a worldly gentleman, a Count, at the expense of all the superstitions of his age. The complex plot could be seen as a series of ALTERNATE WORLDS nestling within one another like Chinese boxes. It was filmed in Poland under the Polish title in 1965, dir Wojciech Has, and distributed quite widely in the West as The Saragossa Manuscript. (2) Historia przyszlos ci ["History of the Future"] (composed 1829-42; part published in French 1835; 1964) by Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855), unfortunately unfinished and partly lost, was done as a large fresco of the world seen more from the cultural than from the technological point of view. (3) The Moon trilogy by Jerzy ZUpsAWSKI consists of Na Srebrnym Globie ["On Silver Globe"] (1901), Zwyciezca ["The Victor"] (1908) and Stara Ziemia ["Old Earth"] (1910). This is an essay on the birth of civilization and myth, and on myth's clash with reality, beautifully written in the fin de siecle mood. (4) The road to modern Polish sf was paved by the avant-garde painter and writer Stanislaw Ignacy WITKIEWICZ in his apocalyptic novels Pozegnanie jesieni ["Farewell to Autumn"] (1927) and Nienasycenie (1930; trans Louis Iribarne as Insatiability 1977 US). Having seen the 1917 Revolution from inside Russia, Witkiewicz was obsessed by the vision of "hordes of Asians" invading Europe and destroying whatever cultural values might exist in the future. He lived up to his philosophy and committed suicide when the Red Army invaded Poland in Sep 1939.Polish postwar sf has had its literary achievements, too - not only the celebrated works of Stanislaw LEM but also the classical sf of Konrad Fialkowski, Adam Wisniewski-Snerg's cult novel Robot (1973) and, in the 1980s, such novels by the wonderfully inventive Wiktor Zwikiewicz as Delirium w Tharsys ["Delirium in Tharsys"] (1986). Poland also has its GENRE-SF writers, such as Bohdan Petecki with Strefy zerowe ["Zero Zones"] (1972).The current running through Polish sf has really been political. Because sf provides a perfect means of diverting attention away from drab reality into a beautiful future, it was encouraged in the decade after WWII by Poland's communist rulers. The best examples of such political sf are Krzysztof Borun's and Andrzej Trepka's Zagubiona przyszlosc ["The Lost Future"] (1953), #1 in a SPACE-OPERA trilogy, and Stanislaw Lem's early novels Astronauci ["The Astronauts"] (1951) and Oblok Magellana ["The Magellan Nebula"] (1955). Rather later, from the mid-1970s onwards, sf writers began to take the opposite tack. Escaping strict censorship by using sf imagery, and with the help of a linguistic ingenuity reminiscent of George ORWELL, they began to describe the real world - even if at the price of incurring serious publication problems. (Orwell was probably a direct influence on such work, as several of his books had been published in Poland by underground publishers.) The best examples of such works are Edmund Wnuk-Lipinski's Wir pamieci ["Whirlpool of Memory"] (1979), Maciej Parowski's Twarza ku Ziemi ["Face to Earth"] (1981), Janusz A. Zajdel's Limes inferior (1982) and Marek Oramus's Senni zwyciezcy ["Sleepy Victors"] (1982).Sf writers of the younger generation are now turning to fantasy, which is more marketable, and, because censorship no longer exists, political sf is in retreat and looks a bit old-fashioned: the gaping hole this leaves in the Polish sf tapestry is currently being filled by the importation (on a massive scale) of US-UK sf by such new private publishers as Amber and Arax.Film has never been a strong point of Polish sf. Aside from The Saragossa Manuscript, 2 further sf films deserve attention. Fitting well into the political-criticism-through-sf-metaphor stream, Wojna Swiatow - Nastepne Stulecie (1982; vt The War of the Worlds-Next Century) dir Piotr Szulkin tells of government manipulation of the media to disguise the facts of a Martian invasion. Something of an exception to this sort of political cinema is SEKSMISJA (1984; vt Sex Mission), a comedy dir Juliusz Machulski.There are currently 2 monthly sf magazines in Poland. The older, Fantastyka, has run since 1982 and has a circulation of over 120,000. Its strong points are its fine critical essays and a good choice of Polish authors. Fenix is the first privately owned and edited magazine; it emerged from FANZINE origins in 1990 and now has a (growing) circulation of about 70,000. Its selection of US-UK sf is considered the better, and it also publishes young Polish writers. Polish FANDOM is massive and well organized, its main activities centring on fanzines and CONVENTIONS. [KS] POLITICAL PREDICTIONS Science fiction writers have a mixed record as far as political predictions are concerned.James Blish’s 1957 novel, The Frozen Year, made a reference to President Kennedy, while C.M. Kornbluth's 1958 story, "Theory of Rocketry," referred to President Nixon.In 1967, Thomas M. Disch was not so prescient. The novel Camp Concentration contains a reference to a President McNamara. POLITICS Most of the works which we can characterize with hindsight as PROTO SCIENCE FICTION are political fantasies. The earnest and constructive aspect of this endeavour is displayed in UTOPIAS, the mocking and corrosive aspect in SATIRES. The desire to make political statements has continued to be the main motive force in works of sf by MAINSTREAM WRITERS, although modern works of this kind make much more frequent use of images of DYSTOPIA than either of the traditional modes of comment. Important subgenres of sf like the future- WAR story grew out of exercises in political propaganda ( INVASION), and all real-world political crusades have sparked the production of competing images of the future. All images of the NEAR FUTURE embody political speculations, partly because of their close continuity with the present and partly because political events are usually a more significant agent of short-term change than scientific DISCOVERY or technological development. There is today a thriving subgenre of "political thrillers" - often written by sometime politicians like Spiro T. Agnew (1918- ) and Jeffrey Archer (1940- ), or even practising ones like Gary Hart (1936- ) and Douglas HURD, but much more elegantly done by writers like Richard CONDON and Allen DRURY - the great majority of whose plots are necessarily set in the near future.The principal political debates of the 19th century are reflected in many early works of sf, the most important being that associated with the rise of socialism. Edward BELLAMY, William MORRIS, Jack LONDON and - in the early part of his career - George GRIFFITH were all moved to construct images of future socialist utopias and revolutions. H.G. WELLS, the presiding genius of UK scientific romance, was a fervent if somewhat idiosyncratic socialist, as was, in an even more curious way, M.P. SHIEL. Before the founding of the SF MAGAZINES, such writers as George Allan ENGLAND followed Jack London's lead in importing stridently anti-capitalist (or at least "anti-trust") futuristic fables into the pulp stratum of the fiction marketplace. Inevitably, socialist visions of the future called forth opposition in the form of images of hideously bloody revolution and regimented dystopias. Notable novels which combine serious political speculations with some appreciation of the imperatives and opportunities associated with technological progress are Bellamy's Looking Backward 2000-1887 (1888), Ignatius DONNELLY's Caesar's Column (1890), Wells's When the Sleeper Wakes (1899), London's The Iron Heel (1907), Victor ROUSSEAU's The Messiah of the Cylinder (1917) and Claude FARRERE's Useless Hands (1920; trans 1926). With the passage of time the dystopian imagery associated with political fantasies became more and more extreme, as such fantasies began to pose more abstract questions of political philosophy and the political spectrum was confused by the rise of fascism and the spectre of totalitarianism. Owen GREGORY's prophetic account of the nation which might arise from the ashes of German defeat, Meccania (1918), stands at the head of a tradition of caricaturistic and surreal political fantasies which includes Milo HASTINGS's City of Endless Night (1920), Yevgeny ZAMIATIN's My (trans as We 1924), Edmund SNELL's Kontrol (1928), John KENDALL's Unborn Tomorrow (1933), J. Leslie MITCHELL's Gay Hunter (1934), Joseph O'NEILL's Land under England (1935), John Palmer's The Hesperides (1936), Katharine BURDEKIN's Swastika Night (1937 as by Murray Constantine), Andrew MARVELL's Minimum Man (1938), Ayn RAND's Anthem (1938) and P.G. CHADWICK's The Death Guard (1939). Alongside these works appeared more modest expressions of sour disenchantment, depicting short-sighted politicians and their equally short-sighted supporters failing dismally to cope with the challenges facing them; these include Rose MACAULAY's What Not (1919), J.D. BERESFORD's Revolution (1921), Fred MACISAAC's "World Brigands" (1928), Hilaire BELLOC's But Soft - We Are Observed (1928), Upton SINCLAIR's Roman Holiday (1931), Harold NICOLSON's Public Faces (1932) John GLOAG's Winter's Youth (1934) and Sinclair LEWIS's It Can't Happen Here (1935).In stark contrast to non-genre writers, the suppliers of the specialist sf PULP MAGAZINES paid relatively little attention to political matters, mostly taking it for granted not only that technological progress was the real engine of social change but that contemporary US democracy might be subverted but would never be worthily superseded. Stanton A. COBLENTZ's leaden satires do contain a certain amount of open-minded political discussion, but such stories as Miles J. BREUER's "The Gostak and the Doshes" (1930) relegated ideological disputes to literal meaninglessness, and Breuer's and Jack WILLIAMSON's The Birth of a New Republic (1930 AMZ Quarterly; 1981 chap) cast the interplanetary politics of the future slavishly in the mode of the political evolution of the USA's past ( HISTORY IN SF). Despite the conspicuously declared uninterest of Hugo GERNSBACK (who published translations of a few German-supremacist utopian fantasies by Otfried von Hanstein [ GERMANY] and others), events in Europe gradually infected with anxiety the visions of the future produced by sf writers. Paul A. CARTER's history of magazine sf, The Creation of Tomorrow (1977), includes an excellent chapter tracking reflections of and responses to the rise of Hitler in such stories as Wallace WEST's "The Phantom Dictator" (1935) and Nat SCHACHNER's series begun with "Past, Present and Future" (1937). There is a sense in which sf has never stopped reacting to Hitler, in that ALTERNATE-WORLD stories of what might have happened had he triumphed in WWII continue to be extremely popular ( HITLER WINS). Norman SPINRAD's The Iron Dream (1972) suggests that, if Hitler had become an sf writer instead of a dictator, his sublimated dreams would have been readily accommodated within the great traditions of SPACE OPERA and HEROIC FANTASY.WWII, in securing the defeat of European fascism and paving the way for the Cold War, established a new real-world context for political fantasy, but its main effect on sf was to bring the entrenched trends rapidly to a climax in George ORWELL's NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR (1949), which became the model for a great deal of later fiction in which the future is imagined as a metaphorical boot stamping on a human face forever. There is a sense in which dystopian fiction after 1949 is merely a series of footnotes to Orwell-so much so that it is not clear whether such works as David KARP's One (1953) and L.P. HARTLEY's Facial Justice (1960) really qualify as political fantasies at all, although Arthur KOESTLER's The Age of Longing (1951) and Adrian MITCHELL's The Bodyguard (1970) clearly do. Orwellian fantasy was imported into GENRE SF by Ray BRADBURY in FAHRENHEIT 451 (1953), and political fantasy of a curious kind, featuring many tales of rebellion against "perverted" political systems in which the interests of some special-interest group have become dominant, became very popular in the magazines of the 1950s. Because it was deemed socially insignificant, sf could play host to political criticism of a kind which might elsewhere have attracted the attentions of Joseph McCarthy (1909-1957) and his Un-American Activities Committee; John W. CAMPBELL Jr's determined affection for unorthodoxy led him to provide a home for such stories as James BLISH's "At Death's End" (1954), whose anti-McCarthy elements were further exaggerated when it was expanded to form part of They Shall Have Stars (fixup 1956). On the other hand, Robert SILVERBERG has revealed that Howard BROWNE terminated Rog PHILLIPS's career as a regular contributor to the ZIFF-DAVIS pulps because of his reckless use of the word "communism" in "Frontiers Beyond the Sun" (1953 as by Mallory Storm).The tradition of HARD SF which developed in Campbell's ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION had a conspicuous tendency towards what is now termed LIBERTARIANISM. This is often credited to Campbell's own idiosyncrasies, including his human-chauvinism (which caused the more conventionally liberal Isaac ASIMOV to eliminate ALIENS from the future history mapped out in the Foundation series) and his fascination with the merits of slavery, but Campbell's unorthodoxy was actually quite elastic - as evidenced by the permission which he gave to his chief Devil's Advocate of the 1960s, Mack REYNOLDS, to challenge conventional political assumptions. It is rather from Robert A. HEINLEIN's version of SOCIAL DARWINISM that the strident Libertarian tradition of US hard sf stems, but there are noticeable differences of ideological complexion and rhetorical style between the other GOLDEN-AGE writers sometimes lumped together with him as "right-wingers": L. Sprague DE CAMP, L. Ron HUBBARD and A.E. VAN VOGT. The writers of the 1950s who enlisted in these ranks - most notably and most thoughtfully Poul ANDERSON and Gordon R. DICKSON - were by no means followers of a party line, nor were such 1960s writers as Larry NIVEN, Jerry POURNELLE and G.C. EDMONDSON, and nor are more recently emergent writers like James P. HOGAN and L. Neil SMITH. Extreme Libertarians are inevitably drawn to images of the future which vividly display the uncompromising nature of their philosophies - as can be seen in the various writings of Ayn RAND and the work of such political philosophers as Robert Nozick - and the clustering of such writers around the more assertively optimistic threads of the sf tradition needs no conspiracy theory to explain it. At least some of what passes for Libertarianism in the works of these and other writers is not dogmatically based at all, but rather represents a continuation of the tradition of sceptical fantasy which grew up between the wars, taking the view that all political institutions are likely to be manned by corrupt incompetents. The quasi-anarchic spirit which one finds in the work of Eric Frank RUSSELL, Philip K. DICK and many of the FUTURIANS is rooted in this ironic tradition, as is the work of such non-genre writers as Kurt VONNEGUT Jr. Then again, much supposedly Libertarian sf simultaneously glorifies militarism to such an extent that the bureaucratic organizations of the state are replaced, at least so far as the key characters are concerned, by hyperorganized command structures in which the ethic of individual freedom supposedly being upheld is chimerically bonded to ideals of slavish loyalty and self-sacrificing "honour"; Niven and Pournelle's Oath of Fealty (1981) is a particularly cleverly thought-out exercise in this kind of doublethink. The sf writers who found themselves in the "opposite" camp to the Libertarians when GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION published its notorious paired ads about the USA's involvement in Vietnam ( WAR) have produced little political rhetoric to compare with the dynamism of the gung-ho glam-tech conquerors of space, although they have produced a good deal of what their macho detractors might describe as "pinko bleeding-heart fiction" lamenting the cruel injustices of a world in danger of spoliation. Active left-wing movements, as featured in Gordon EKLUND's All Times Possible (1974) and John SHIRLEY's Eclipse (1985), remain rare, although the curious anarchist philosophies displayed in Norman SPINRAD's Agent of Chaos (1967) and van Vogt's The Anarchistic Colossus (1977) have attracted some attention from would-be followers.Other political issues which gradually came to the fore in post-WWII sf were sexual politics and race relations. Fantasies of sexual politics had a long history dating back to the days of the suffragettes and such feminist writers as Charlotte Perkins GILMAN, but serious speculative work had largely been eclipsed by anxious fantasies about female-dominated societies, written by males. WOMEN SF WRITERS increased dramatically in numbers in the 1950s-60s, and began to build bridges to the FEMINIST movement (see also WOMEN AS DEPICTED IN SCIENCE FICTION). Futuristic fictions bearing on the problems of race relations had a fairly similar history, serious speculations being virtually drowned out by anxious fantasies and by the kind of unthinking racism and antisemitism which were long rife in popular fiction of all kinds. Such (relatively) open-minded works as Herrmann LANG's The Air Battle (1859) remain anomalies in a 19th century dominated by the racist ideologies which found virulent expression in King WALLACE's The Next War (1892) and Louis TRACY's Anglo-Saxon-supremacist The Final War (1896). Tracy's worldview was echoed in M.P. Shiel's early Yellow-Peril novel The Yellow Danger (1898), but Shiel repented of it in such later books as the misleadingly retitled The Dragon (1913; rev as The Yellow Peril 1929), in the same way that he reassessed and reversed his occasional knee-jerk antisemitism in his Messianic political fantasy The Lord of the Sea (1901). The USA inevitably produced a considerable number of political fantasies about Black/White relations, including thoughtful works like T. Shirby HODGE's The White Man's Burden (1915) and George Samuel SCHUYLER's satire Black No More (1931). As the Civil Rights movement began in the 1950s and reached its first climactic phase in the 1960s, several notable futuristic fantasies of race relations were produced by mainstream writers, including A Different Drummer (1959) by William Melvin KELLEY, The Siege of Harlem (1964) by Warren MILLER, The Spook who Sat by the Door (1969) by Sam GREENLEE and several novels by John WILLIAMS, but such direct treatments seemed too sensitive to most genre-magazine editors, who preferred their writers to use aliens in parables whose arguments were conducted at a more abstract level; the most notable exception is the series by Mack Reynolds begun with Black Man's Burden (1961; 1972 dos), set in Africa rather than the USA. UK sf novels bearing on racial problems include Margot BENNETT's The Long Way Back (1954), Robert BATEMAN's When the Whites Went (1963), John BRUNNER's The Jagged Orbit (1969) and - by far the boldest - Christopher PRIEST's Fugue for a Darkening Island (1972; vt Darkening Island US). South African political fantasies on the theme include Arthur KEPPEL-JONES's anti-Apartheid When Smuts Goes (1947) and Garry ALLIGHAM's pro-Apartheid Verwoerd - The End (1961). In general, though, as the real-world problems become ever more urgent, the tendency of genre sf has been to ignore the issue or sanctimoniously to take for granted its eventual disappearance.Although there are some interesting sarcastic fantasies about future election campaigns - e.g., William TENN's "Null-P" (1951) and "The Masculinist Revolt" (1965), Arthur T. HADLEY's The Joy Wagon (1958) and Gordon Eklund's The Eclipse of Dawn (1971) - sophisticated political fantasy remains a rarity in genre sf. Reynolds's efforts along those lines, heroic after their fashion, are muddled, and bogged down by their fusion with the crude melodramatics and uneasy comedy which he found necessary to include to secure publication. A certain transcendence of the expectations of commercially minded editors is a necessary prerequisite to the production of truly serious sf, and it is arguable that the only writer with a keen interest in politics yet to have achieved it is Ursula K. LE GUIN, whose most sustained essay in earnest political fantasy is The Dispossessed (1974). The practical politics of coping with the problems which are urgent today and steadily getting more so are rarely addressed in sf, although there are noble exceptions, including Frederik POHL's The Years of the City (fixup 1984). The situation has, of course, been even worse in Eastern Europe, where the content of popular fiction was - until very recently - determined by diktat. Political discourse in almost all translated sf from pre-Yeltsin RUSSIA treads the party line dutifully, if not always wholeheartedly; the most interesting partial exception is the work of the brothers STRUGATSKI. Dissident fiction which contrived to reach the West is, of course, much more pointed; a notable example is 1985 (1983) by Gyorgy Dalos, which replays the post-WWII history of Hungary as a sequel to Orwell's NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR. It will be interesting to see what kinds of sf emerge from post-communist Eastern Europe during the next few years. [PN/BS] POLLACK, RACHEL (GRACE) (1945- ) US writer, resident in the Netherlands 1973-90. She published her first sf story with NW in 1972, "Pandora's Bust" as by Richard A. Pollack. Her first novel, Golden Vanity (1980 US), was an ornate SPACE OPERA whose large cast of aliens ransacks a venal Earth in search of a female runaway. Alqua Dreams (1987 US) is a rather flat drama of ontology set on an alien planet; the human protagonist, faced with the obdurate Platonism of the inhabitants, must argue METAPHYSICS with them in an attempt to suggest that the sensory world is sufficiently "real" for them to sell him the rare mineral he needs. The background is voluminously drawn, but the narrative is sluggish. In RP's third novel, Unquenchable Fire (1988 UK), winner of the ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD for 1989, a similarly intractable narrative - the book is constructed so that a long flashback reiterates material already delivered - more closely models the situation it depicts. In the ALTERNATE-WORLD USA of the tale, shamanism actually works ( MAGIC); and a lovingly described bureaucracy of shamans, revering the Founders who brought them to power generations earlier, are actually able to ask the Earth's roots for energy. The protagonist of the book, finding that her unwilled pregnancy is destined to make her the mother of a new revitalizing shaman, resists her role fiercely; the resume of her life, as given in flashback, only intensifies the sense of her deep stubborness; the sequel, Temporary Agency (1994 UK), reconfigures some of the same material. Throughout, RP's portrait of a radical different but alarmingly similar USA is densely drawn, and her depiction of life in an alternate Poughkeepsie is frequently hilarious. Several stories - like "The Protector" (1986 Interzone) - depict similarly transformed universes. An anthology of original stories, Tarot Tales (anth 1989 UK) with Caitlin Matthews, carries RP's professional interest in the Tarot (she has published nonfiction in the field) into fiction; each contributor used OULIPO techniques to extract story ideas from a Tarot pack. From issue 64 to its demise at the end of 1994 with issue 87, she wrote Doom Patrol for DC COMICS. RP's subject matter and manner are narrow in their extent, compellingly intense in their focus. [JC]See also: PSEUDO-SCIENCE. POLLOCK, WALTER HERRIES Walter BESANT; Andrew LANG. POLLUTION Early sf stories dealing with catastrophes brought about by pollution of the environment ( ECOLOGY) concentrate on the perils of smog; they include W. Delisle HAY's The Doom of the Great City (1880) and Robert BARR's "The Doom of London" (1892). The pollutant effects of industrial waste were very familiar in the 19th-century UK: air pollution had shaped the city of London (the prevailing wind blows east and the upper strata of the population moved steadily west) and slag defaced England's northern counties to the extent that Yorkshiremen coined a proverb: "Where there's muck, there's brass [money]." It is hardly surprising that England produced the one enduring 19th-century image of civilization as pollution, in Richard JEFFERIES's After London (1885). The image of city life presented in the socially conscious, traditional 19th-century novel, as by Charles DICKENS, makes much of the foulness of city dirt, but the problem was generally seen as easily correctable. The notion that environmental pollution might be a serious threat in the future is not evident in early sf, where it tends to be assumed that progress will sweep the dirt away. Virtually all utopian CITIES are remarkable for their cleanliness, and it seemed reasonable to one inhabitant of a northern industrial city, signing himself "A Disciple" (of H.G. WELLS), to borrow the famous TIME MACHINE in order to see The Coming Era, or Leeds Beatified (1900). This optimism seems rather ironic today.By the end of the 1950s, serious attention had been given in sf to only one kind of pollution: radioactive waste. The effects of the residual radiation of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions and the tests at Bikini atoll were well known, and the destruction of the environment by radiation poisoning became one of the most horrifying aspects of the post-atomic- WAR scenario ( HOLOCAUST AND AFTER; MUTANTS). These stories probably helped bring about an increased sensitivity to the idea of insidious poisons in the environment, and it was not long before awareness grew of more commonplace dangers: arsenic in wallpaper, lead in water pipes, etc. The first sf cautionary tales about society's general philosophy of waste disposal began to appear in the 1950s. C.M. KORNBLUTH's "Shark Ship" (1958) is an extreme example; and James WHITE's story of the hazards of orbital garbage, "Deadly Litter" (1960), has been transformed by the passage of time into a neat parable. It was in the early 1960s, however, that the problem was brought very sharply into focus, largely due to the publication of Silent Spring (1962) by Rachel Carson (1907-1964), which argued that pollution of a radically new type had begun, involving nonbiodegradable substances which accumulated in living matter to fatal concentrations. DDT, once widely used as an insecticide, was one of the main targets of attack in Carson's book; PBB, a compound responsible for poisoning large numbers of cattle and some people in Michigan, belongs to the same family of compounds; the fluorocarbons more recently blamed for the depletion of the ozone layer are closely related.Awareness of these threats was rapidly absorbed into sf, and virtually overnight became a standard feature of NEAR-FUTURE scenarios. A lurid early dramatization of the issue is The Clone (1965) by Theodore L. THOMAS and Kate WILHELM, a horror story about pollutants which spontaneously generate life to become an omnivorous, amorphous monster. A more realistic treatment of some relevant issues is MAKE ROOM! MAKE ROOM! (1966) by Harry HARRISON, which also deals with OVERPOPULATION. Similarly alarmist stories include James BLISH's "We All Die Naked" (1969), John BRUNNER's The Sheep Look Up (1972), Philip WYLIE's Los Angeles: A.D. 2017 (1971) and The End of the Dream (1972), Kurt VONNEGUT Jr's "The Big Space Fuck" (1972), Andrew J. OFFUTT's The Castle Keeps (1972) and Kit PEDLER's and Gerry DAVIS's Brainrack (1974). In more recent times pollution has come to be taken so much for granted that it is rarely addressed as an issue in itself, instead forming a constant background element in almost all near-future extrapolations, whether they aspire to be DYSTOPIAN or merely realistic; it is particularly evident in Paul THEROUX's O-Zone (1986) and David BRIN's Earth (1990). The rapidity with which the subject became familiar is evident in the early appearance of such works of SATIRE as Charles PLATT's Garbage World (1967) and Norman SPINRAD's "The Lost Continent" (1970). More thoughtful and sophisticated treatments include The Thinking Seat (1970) by Peter TATE and "King's Harvest" (1972) by Gardner DOZOIS. It is widely felt that the biggest danger is complacency-a point made by the effective "To Walk with Thunder" (1973) by Dean MCLAUGHLIN, in which the hero fights to suppress a device that will guarantee clean air inside the home, on the grounds that it would become an industrial carte blanche to pollute the atmosphere irredeemably. Pollution: Omnibus (anth 1971), issued to cash in on the height of the scare, contains "Shark Ship", MAKE ROOM! MAKE ROOM! and the dubiously relevant CITY (fixup 1952) by Clifford D. SIMAK. The Ruins of Earth (anth 1971) ed Thomas M. DISCH is another theme anthology with a number of relevant stories. [BS] POMERLEAU, LUC (1955- ) French-speaking Canadian physics graduate, technical translator, editor of the French-language Quebec sf magazine SOLARIS since 1986, and sf and comics critic. He wrote the section on Francophone sf in this encyclopedia's entry on CANADA. [PN] POPE, GUSTAVUS W. (? -? ) US writer and physician, in whose 2 sf novels, Romances of the Planets, No. 1: Journey to Mars (1894) and Romances of the Planets, No. 2: Journey to Venus (1895), a US officer visits an advanced MARS (falling in love with a princess) and a primitive VENUS (shooting, as E.F. BLEILER has noted, anything that moves). Introducing a reprint edition of the first book, Sam MOSKOWITZ noted some adumbrations of Edgar Rice BURROUGHS's Barsoom. [JC] See also: HISTORY OF SF. POPKES, STEVEN (1952- ) US writer who began publishing sf with "A Capella Blues" for IASFM in 1982. Caliban Landing (1987) interestingly depicts a human expedition to map a new planet (Caliban)-and the complex consequences of its landing there-from the viewpoint of an ALIEN female, who becomes embroiled in the humans' heated interactions. After a fairly conventional start, the tale expands into a complex exploration of the personalities thus thrust together. [JC]Other work: Slow Lightning (1991 dos). POPOV, ALEXANDER (1954- ) Bulgarian sf writer and publisher who has won awards for his short fiction, some written under the pseudonym Al Vickers, some translated into foreign languages. His sf novel Provinzia Pet ["Province Five"] as by Al Vickers was contracted in 1991 for publication in Russian translation in Russia. His recently established Gemini publishing house began, in 1991, to publish a fortnightly sf magazine, Drugi Svetove ["Other Worlds"]. AP wrote this encyclopedia's entry on BULGARIA. [PN] POPULAR FICTION CO. WEIRD TALES. POPULAR MAGAZINE, THE US PULP MAGAZINE published by STREET & SMITH, ed Henry Harrison Lewis and others. Appeared monthly from Nov 1903, semi-monthly from 1 Oct 1909, weekly from 24 Sep 1927, semi-monthly from 7 July 1928, and monthly Feb-Sep 1931. Merged with Complete Stories from Oct 1931.TPM, which was in competition with the Frank A. MUNSEY chain, regularly published fantasy and sf. Among its noteworthy contributions to the genre were stories in the Craig Kennedy series by Arthur B. REEVE, future- WAR stories by Edwin BALMER and the serialization of Ayesha (1905; 1905) by H. Rider HAGGARD. Other contributors included John Buchan (1815-1940), John COLLIER, Roy NORTON, Sax ROHMER and Edgar WALLACE. [JE] POPULAR SCIENCE FICTION Australian thin (64pp) DIGEST-size magazine. 8 numbered issues in all: #1-#6 1953-5, published by Frew Publications, Sydney, plus 2, numbered NEW SERIES 1 and 2, 1967, published by Page Publications, NSW; no eds named. The Frew series printed some US reprints and also original Australian and US material; the Page series reprinted #4 and #6 of the Frew publications. A companion magazine, similarly poor, was FUTURE SCIENCE FICTION. [FHP/PN] POPULATION EXPLOSION OVERPOPULATION. PORGES, ARTHUR (1915- ) US writer and teacher of mathematics who began publishing sf with "The Rats" for Man's World in 1951, and since then has published about 70 stories - some as Peter Arthur and some as Pat Rogers - without releasing any of them in book collections. He is, however, a strong and inventive writer, especially of fantasy. He is best known for "The Fly" (1952), not to be confused with George LANGELAAN's tale, and "The Ruum" (1953).AP's brother, Irwin Porges (1909- ), who collaborated with him on at least 1 story, wrote Edgar Allan Poe (1963) and Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Man who Created Tarzan (1975). [JC] PORTAL, ELLIS Bruce POWE. PORTER, ANDREW (IAN) (1946- ) US editor and publisher, active in FANDOMsince the 1960s, who founded and ran the influential ALGOL, for which he won a 1974 HUGO, as well as its longer-lived (still current) companion, SCIENCE FICTION CHRONICLE. AP also ed anon 2 critical texts, Exploring Cordwainer Smith (anth 1975 chap) and Experiment Perilous: Three Essays on Science Fiction (anth 1976 chap), and ed The Book of Ellison (anth 1978) - described by Harlan ELLISON as "unauthorized". [JC] PORTNOY, HOWARD N. (1946- ) US writer and teacher whose Hot Rain (1977) seems to start off as a horror fantasy about apparently supernatural bolts of lightning. Eventually, however, a pseudo-scientific explanation is found in a secret military project. [JC] POSITRONIC ROBOTS Because Isaac ASIMOV's ROBOT stories are so celebrated, this term is one of the best known in the genre; it is not, however, a generally used item of sf TERMINOLOGY, few writers having had the cheek to borrow the idea from its inventor - although Data, the android in STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, is described as having a positronic brain. The positron is the antiparticle of the electron ( ANTIMATTER; PHYSICS); the idea of (highly unstable) positrons being suitable material for the construction of an artificial brain with "enforced calculated neuronic paths" was sheer double-talk, as Asimov was the first to admit. [PN] POSTAL PUBLICATIONS MARVEL SCIENCE STORIES. POST-DISASTER AND POST-HOLOCAUST STORIES HOLOCAUST AND AFTER. POSTMODERNISM AND SF "Modernism" is a useful umbrella term for the art that followed the collapse of Romanticism, especially in the first half of the 20th century, but Postmodernism is not simply its more recent replacement. In fact, most contemporary serious writing remains insistently Modernist. The term "Postmodernism" implies a theory of both writing and the world, and a shift in emphasis and method.In literature, Postmodernism is usually held to imply showy playfulness, genre-bending, and denial of neat aesthetic or moral wrap-up; above all, writing that knows or even struts itself as writing, rather than as innocent portrayal. John BARTH, Jorge Luis BORGES, Christine BROOKE-ROSE, Italo CALVINO, Angela CARTER, Don DELILLO, Philip K. DICK, Umberto ECO, Raymond Federman and Thomas PYNCHON are all Postmodernists whose inventions edge close to sf. Within the genre one might name J.G. BALLARD, Samuel R. DELANY, William GIBSON, Michael MOORCOCK, Rudy RUCKER, John T. SLADEK, Kurt VONNEGUT Jr, Robert Anton WILSON, Joanna RUSS and Ian WATSON as well as Norman SPINRAD (sometimes), Lucius SHEPARD (maybe) and even A.E. VAN VOGT (ahead of his time). Sheer novelty, or even quality, are insufficient to qualify as Postmodernists such writers as Brian W. ALDISS, Thomas M. DISCH, Gene WOLFE and the early Roger ZELAZNY - exemplary sf Modernists all, but not Postmodernists. Such catalogues, however, may miss a deeper point.Brian McHale, in Postmodernist Fiction (1987), sees Postmodernism as defined by its focus, as ontological rather than epistemological. That is, where Modernism focuses upon "knowing" and its limits, including what we know about others and ourselves as subjects, Postmodernism by contrast asks about "being", the worlds the subject inhabits; it is about objects rather than subjects. This shift reflects a realization that the world of human experience is multiple and open-ended. The Postmodern condition has an analogy in quantum theory ( PHYSICS), where phenomena are modelled by abstract waves in many superposed states, collapsing to a single value or "reality" only in the act of observation.Contemporary sf undoubtedly intersects the Postmodernism of mainstream literature, especially when it follows the kinds of strategy pioneered by Delany in such self-reflexive texts as, perhaps, DHALGREN (1975) and, definitely, Triton (1976). For McHale, sf is "perhaps the ontological genre par excellence. We can think of science fiction as Postmodernism's noncanonized or 'low art' double, its sister-genre in the same sense that the popular detective thriller is Modernism's sister-genre." Sf is, of all the genres, the one that constructs "realities" as a matter of course.Perhaps the most influential critical account is the Marxist Fredric Jameson's. In "Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" (July/Aug 1984 New Left Review), he itemizes its stigmata. He finds "a flatness or depthlessness" to be "perhaps the supreme formal feature of all the Postmodernisms", and also a waning of feeling linked to an alleged loss of people's sense of themselves as individuals, and the consequent replacement of "affect" (especially alienated angst) with "a peculiar kind of euphoria"; the end of personal style and a sense of history (and memory) and their replacement by pastiche (not parody, but the transcoding of Modernist styles into jargon, badges and other decorations) and nostalgia; a schizophrenic fragmentation of artistic texts, marked especially by collage; and, most of all, the "hysterical sublime", in which the alien or "other" surpasses our power to represent it and pitches us into a sort of Gothic rapture (see also BIG DUMB OBJECTS; SENSE OF WONDER). All of these qualities often characterize not only the arguably Postmodern environment in which we live but also sf in particular, which Jameson himself has recognized in his many essays on sf topics in SCIENCE-FICTION STUDIES. His theorizing is borrowed explicitly and persuasively for sf by Vivian SOBCHACK in the last chapter of her Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film (1987), which projects a "postfuturism".Jameson suggests specifically that today's information networks "afford us some glimpse into a post-modern or technological sublime", which is perhaps what we find in the VIRTUAL REALITIES of the CYBERPUNK writers, where simulation and reality dissolve into one another. Indeed, Jameson later claimed in Postmodernism (1991) that cyberpunk was "the supreme literary expression if not of postmodernism, then of late capitalism itself".Innovative sf writers have adopted several of the expansive possibilities of metafiction, MAGIC REALISM and poststructuralist FABULATION (which see for further discussion of issues raised in this entry) in general; but more specific both to sf and other Postmodernisms is a comparable adoption of the language of scientific discourse rather than that of traditional literature, and this too tends to the abolition of Modernism's subjectivity - a common feature in late cyberpunk, as in Michael SWANWICK's Vacuum Flowers (1987). In their emphasis on the technological surround, on the dense new lexicons bursting up especially from the consumer-oriented market productivity of post-industrial science, both sf and Postmodernism give a privileged position to outward context, code and world rather than to a poetic inward "message". They stress object over subject, ways of being over ways of knowing. The Universe itself becomes a text, open to endless interpretation and rewriting.Two generalizing texts about Postmodernism, neither specifically about sf, are The Postmodern Condition (1979) by Jean-Francois Lyotard and the weird The Postmodern Scene: Excremental Culture and Hyper-Aesthetics (1986) by Arthur Kroker and David Cook. A book relating Postmodernism in general to sf specifically is the unevenly useful Postmodern Fiction: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide (anth 1986) ed Larry McCaffery (1946- ). Alternate Worlds: A Study of Postmodern Antirealistic American Fiction (1990) by John Kuehl discusses many Postmodern authors of marginal, non-genre sf. A good introduction from several perspectives can be found in the special Postmodernism number of JOURNAL OF THE FANTASTIC IN THE ARTS vol 1 #4 (1988). The Postmodernism issue of Science-Fiction Studies (Nov 1991) has translations of essays on simulacra and on Ballard by the French sociologist Jean Baudrillard, an important theoretician in this area, along with other interesting material including Ballard's enjoyably intemperate response. Also illuminating is Tom Moylan's Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination (1986 UK). [DB] POTOCKI, JAN [r] POLAND. POTTER, ROBERT (1831-? ) Australian author and clergyman; he died before 1912. His novel The Germ Growers: An Australian Story of Adventure and Mystery (1892; vt The Germ Growers: The Strange Adventures of Robert Easterley and John Wilbraham 1892 UK) was published in AUSTRALIA as by Robert Easterley and John Wilbraham, the names of the protagonists, but in the UK as "edited by" RP. A race of discarnate beings, denizens of the interplanetary "ether" capable of assuming human form, invades Earth and sets up beachheads where they cultivate plague germs to be used on humanity; one beachhead is discovered in the Australian outback, with an ALIEN who calls himself Davelli in charge, and the adventures begin. At the end another space dweller called Leafar (i.e., Rafael) saves the day. This alien- INVASION story antedates H.G. WELLS's THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (1898) by 6 years, but the element of Christian allegory (fallen angels confronted by a good angel) leaves its sf potential not fully realized. Nonetheless, the evil experiments in the chemical mutation of bacteria and the electric flying machines are early GENRE SF in style. [PN] POURNELLE, JERRY E(UGENE) (1933- ) US writer with an undergraduate degree in engineering and PhDs from the University of Washington in psychology (1960) and political science (1964). He was employed for 15 years in the US space programme, working for both government and private firms, and at one time was a political campaign manager. Before entering sf, JP wrote some technical nonfiction and some fiction, occasionally using pseudonyms and house names. His first books were a nonfiction text, The Strategy of Technology (1970) with Stefan T. Possony, and two non-sf novels as by Wade Curtis: Red Heroin (1969; 1985 as JEP) and Red Dragon (1971; 1985 as JEP); he used the Curtis name also for a few stories in ASF, though his first sf story, "Peace with Honor", appeared in 1971 under his own name.This story forms part of JEP's most extended series, the CoDominium sequence, earlier parts of which are named after their chief military protagonist, a cunning, honourable mercenary and military genius named Falkenberg who, in a period of civilian stupidity and venality (it is a sort of period often depicted in JP's work), conspires with the CoDominium military force to maintain a human presence in those worlds already colonized by mankind. He appears in West of Honor (1976 Canada) and The Mercenary (fixup 1977), the latter book reworking "Peace with Honor" and other stories - both vols being assembled as Falkenberg's Legion (omni 1990) - and in Prince of Mercenaries (fixup 1989),Go Tell the Spartans (1991) and Prince of Sparta (1993), both with S.M. STIRLING. Set considerably later in the CoDominium world - after the rise and fall of a first Empire of Man, an interregnum, and the birth of the Second Empire - A Spaceship for the King (1973; exp vt King David's Spaceship 1981) also features a tough military genius, whose resemblance to Falkenberg is obviously of thematic importance, for JP argues implicitly in the sequence that civilization can be sustained only through a hierarchical structuring of society which - perhaps rather magically - manages to avoid bureaucratic sclerosis, and through the maintenance of such military virtues as honour and loyalty. These arguments are most clearly on view in the series' climax, THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE (1974) with Larry NIVEN, set in a period when the CoDominium has evolved into a full-blown GALACTIC EMPIRE with all the trappings. The fascinating ALIENS depicted in that novel reflect his collaborator's conceptual ingenuity as clearly as the human Empire reflects JP's sustained fictional argument for that kind of solution to the problems of just government. The sequel, The Gripping Hand (1993; vt The Moat Around Murcheson's Eyes 1993 UK), lacks the thrusting innovativeness of the first volume. The more recent War World sequence of SHARED-WORLD anthologies - War World, Volume 1: The Burning Eye * (anth 1988) with John F. CARR and Roland GREEN, #2: Death's Head Rebellion * (anth 1990) with Carr and Green, #3: Sauron Dominion * (anth 1991) with Carr alone, #5: Blood Feuds* (anth 1992), #6: Blood Vengeance *(anth 1994) and #8: Invasion *(anth 1994) - carries the CoDominium concept into broader waters, with a prequel, #4: Codominium: Revolt on War World * (anth 1992) with Carr, setting the stage.After THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE, JEP collaborated with Niven on several further novels, all singletons and most extremely successful in the marketplace (for details see Larry NIVEN). They include Inferno (1976), Lucifer's Hammer (1977), Oath of Fealty (1981), which rewrites CoDominium feudalism in mundane - indeed, suburbanized - terms, Footfall (1985), The Legacy of Heorot (1987 UK), with Niven and Steven BARNES, and Fallen Angels (1991), with Niven and Michael FLYNN. Political subtexts - always evident in both main collaborators' solo work - tend in their joint efforts to surface rather more frequently, to the discomfort of some readers, especially those unaccustomed to the singularly narrow range of political discourse in the USA (though within that narrow range its expression is singularly open); other readers find the books refreshingly "robust" ( POLITICS).Most of JEP's solo work not devoted to the CoDominium also focuses on issues of WAR and the decorums and tactics of waging war. A second, shorter and more pessimistic series, the Laurie Jo Hansen sequence, substitutes corporate warfare for military/political conflict: High Justice (coll of linked stories 1977) and Exiled to Glory (1978). The Janissaries sequence - Janissaries (1979), Janissaries: Clan and Crown (1983) with Roland Green and Janissaries 3: Storms of Victory (1987), again with Green - returns to explicit warfare, describing a mercenary leader's efforts to unify the planet to which he and his soldiers have been transplanted. JEP also edited, with John F. Carr (not always credited), the There Will be War sequence of military anthologies: There Will be War (anth 1983), Vol II: Men of War (anth 1984), Vol III: Blood and Iron (anth 1984), Vol IV: Day of the Tyrant (anth 1985), Vol V: Warrior (anth 1986), Vol VI: Guns of Darkness (anth 1987), Vol VII: Call to Battle (anth 1988), Vol VIII: Armageddon! (anth 1989) and Vol IX: After Armageddon (anth 1990).JEP was first recipient of the JOHN W. CAMPBELL AWARD for Best New Writer in 1973, and very rapidly established himself as a dominant creator of the politically conservative-libertarian HARD-SF tale. His military sf has shaped that subgenre as well, though it would be unfair to blame him for the excesses of his imitators. His nonfiction, too, has been notable for its engaging clarity, its constant presentation of political agendas, and its eagerness to convey knowledge. A sense of deep cultural pessimism, though countered by explicit avowals of LIBERTARIAN hopefulness, pervades and - for many readers - humanizes his work. [JC]Other works: Escape from the Planet of the Apes * (1974), a film tie ( ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES); Birth of Fire (1976 Canada).Nonfiction: That Buck Rogers Stuff (coll 1977); A Step Farther Out (coll 1979); Mutual Assured Survival: A Space-Age Solution to Nuclear Annihilation (1984) with Dean ING; The User's Guide to Small Computers (1984); Adventures in Microland (1986).As Editor: 2020 Vision (anth 1974); Black Holes (anth 1978) with John F. Carr (here, and occasionally elsewhere, uncredited); The Endless Frontier (anth 1979), The Endless Frontier, Volume 2 (anth 1985) and Cities in Space (anth 1991), all with Carr; The Survival of Freedom (anth 1981) with Carr; Nebula Award Stories Sixteen (anth 1982); The Science Fiction Yearbook (anth 1985) with Carr; the FAR FRONTIERS original anthology series, all with James BAEN, Far Frontiers (anth 1985), Vol II (anth 1985), Vol III (anth 1985), Vol IV (anth 1986), Vol V (anth 1986), Vol VI (anth 1986) and Vol VII (anth 1986); the Imperial Stars reprint anthologies with Carr, Imperial Stars, Vol 1: The Stars at War (anth 1986), Vol 2: Republic and Empire (anth 1987) and Vol 3: the Crash of Empire (anth 1989).See also: CITIES; COMMUNICATIONS; DESTINIES; DISASTER; ECONOMICS; ESCHATOLOGY; GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION; GODS AND DEMONS; INVASION; LIBERTARIAN SF; MYTHOLOGY; NUCLEAR POWER; OUTER PLANETS; OVERPOPULATION; SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA; SOCIAL DARWINISM; SPACESHIPS; STARS; UTOPIAS. POWE, BRUCE (1925- ) Canadian writer whose sf novels concentrate on political disorders, a theme very common to post-WWII writers from his country. Killing Ground: The Canadian Civil War (1968), as Ellis Portal, sets its fatal conflict in the NEAR FUTURE. The Last Days of the American Empire (1974) more far-rangingly sets its conflicts in the 21st century, when a North American hegemony is threated by both Europe and Africa. [JC] POWELL, SONNY [s] Alfred BESTER. POWER, THE Film (1968). Galaxy/MGM. Prod George PAL. Dir Pal, Byron HASKIN, starring George Hamilton, Suzanne Pleshette, Nehemiah Persoff, Michael Rennie. Screenplay John Gay, based on The Power (1956) by Frank M. ROBINSON. 109 mins. Colour.Without the spectacular special effects of Pal's earlier sf films, TP concentrates instead on suspenseful plotting and the clever investing of apparently ordinary situations with a sense of menace, coming-with considerable success - as close to film noir as Pal ever approached. It tells of a MUTANT supermind VILLAIN, masquerading as an ordinary human, who is eliminating, piecemeal, a group of scientists who suspect his existence. One (Hamilton) survives not only murder attempts but also efforts to make him a non-person, all records of his past being deleted one by one. The reason for his survival, as he himself finally learns, is that he too is a mutant: everybody's favorite cliche in pulp-sf yarns about PSI POWERS. The film ends with a battle of wills between the two superminds - a literally heart-stopping event. The interesting script and taut direction led critic John BAXTER to call it "one of the finest of all sf films". It is certainly, aside from WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953), Pal's best sf production. [PN/JB] POWERS, J.L. John S. GLASBY. POWERS, RICHARD M. (1921- ) US illustrator. Born in Chicago, he studied in several art schools in that area before and after WWII. He began work in sf ILLUSTRATIONno later than 1950 - an early abstract RMP cover being for Isaac ASIMOV's Pebble in the Sky (1950) - for DOUBLEDAYwhere he also did mysteries and Westerns, and also with 2 1952 covers for Gal. When Ian Ballantine founded BALLANTINE BOOKS in 1952 he approached RMP to do covers for him. Although some of his early work there was representational (some of the early Doubleday work had been abstract), RMP soon - with the cover for Arthur C. CLARKE's CHILDHOOD'S END (1953) - adopted a Surrealist style (much influenced by Yves Tanguy [1900-1955] and Joan Miro [1893-1983]) unique in sf; it became the trademark of Ballantine's 1950s sf. RMP's glowing and sometimes whimsical paintings are full of amorphous shapes, floating in space or over surreal landscapes, and have been enormously influential in sf illustration. He did a little more magazine-cover work, but most of his prolific sf cover illustration - he worked in other fields as well, including children's books - was for books, for Ballantine, Pocket Books, Berkley Books, MacFadden, Dell and others. After his first wife's death he dropped most of his commercial work during the 1960s, then returned in the 1970s, not quite so prolifically but as forcefully as ever. He has had many exhibitions, in New York's Rehn Gallery and elsewhere; his work commands as much respect outside sf as in it. With RMP's work the packaging of sf could be said to have come of age. Covers no longer required glamorous space girls or technological hardware, and Surrealism captured sf's disturbing essence just as strongly as ray-guns or monsters. A portfolio is Spacetimewarp Paintings(1983). [PN/JG] POWERS, TIM(OTHY) (1952- ) US writer who began publishing sf with The Skies Discrowned (1976 Canada as Timothy Powers; rev vt Forsake the Sky 1986 as TP), a fantasy-tinged sf adventure much influenced - TP stated in his introduction to the revised version - by the work of Rafael Sabatini (1875-1950). Epitaph in Rust (1976 Canada as Timothy Powers; text restored, vt An Epitaph in Rust 1989 as TP) somewhat more vividly sets the adventures of its protagonist, a reluctant monk, in a post- HOLOCAUST California. Already some features typical of the mature TP novel were taking shape: protagonists who have been lamed by symbolic wounds but who are depicted with a sustaining dark geniality; plots which mix genres with elegant facility but without bleaching out or calling into philosophical question the various worlds which are flung together (so that TP cannot be described as an author of FABULATIONS - differing in this from his colleague and sometime collaborator, James P. BLAYLOCK); and settings described with florid clarity and great devotion to detail. But the first 2 tales - written as they were for LASER BOOKS - only hinted at these riches; it was not until his third novel, The Drawing of the Dark (1979), an outright FANTASY, that TP began clearly to demonstrate his complex gifts. The title refers to the drawing of a beer which has been brewed in one location - atop the grave of Finn Mac Cool - for several thousand years, and which must be drawn by Merlin in the middle of the 16th century to allow a reborn Fisher King (and the protagonist, who is an avatar of Arthur himself) to save Europe from the Turks. Vienna is vividly depicted; the story, told in a slangy but unmocking manner, is gripping.THE ANUBIS GATES (1983; rev 1984 UK), which won the 1984 PHILIP K. DICK MEMORIAL AWARD and is a central example of STEAMPUNK, may be the easiest of all TP's books to admire, though it is less daunting in scope than his later work. While tracing the career and work of early-Victorian poet William Ashbless - both TP and James P. Blaylock have written "Ashbless" poems, including "Offering the Bicentennial Edition of the Complete Twelve Hours of the Night" (1985 broadsheet) by both authors - the soon-to-be-wounded protagonist Brendan Doyle is sent by TIME TRAVEL to the London of 1810, where he is trapped, and the plot thickens with virtuoso speed; Egyptian MAGIC (intricately described in terms of the precise techniques necessary to operate it) intersects with a compulsive and feverish vision of the underground life of the great city (patently derived from the work of Charles DICKENS), while haunted MONSTERS roam the aisles of the city and Doyle ricochets backwards through time and forwards into the body of Ashbless, whom he becomes. Fantasy, sf, horror and historical fiction all marry here with an ease which seems entirely natural.TP's next novel, Dinner at Deviant's Palace (1985), which also won the Dick Award, marked a partial return to the comparative simplicities of his first work, though its use of post-holocaust California was markedly less genre-bound than that of Epitaph in Rust, especially in its protagonists' re-enactment of the Orpheus and Eurydice legend, and in the confrontation with an ALIEN, who is both a fake MESSIAH and Lord of the Underworld. On Stranger Tides (1987) is a hugely enriched pirate yarn, set in an ALTERNATE-WORLD 18th century and concerning (in part) a search for IMMORTALITY. The Stress of Her Regard (1989), possibly TP's most sustained single novel, is set in the early 19th century of THE ANUBIS GATES, focusing not only on Byron (who appears in the earlier book) but on Percy Shelley and Mary SHELLEY and John Keats as well, in a story involving lamiae and vampires ( SUPERNATURAL CREATURES), culminating in the sf-like revelation that non-carbon-based forms of life have survived and are the secret masters of the Austrian Empire. Last Call (1992) is a complex contemporary fantasy novel in which Bugsy Siegel is one of a series of Fisher Kings; its protagonist must avoid being sacrificed in a ritual of succession.Though his fertility of invention occasionally (as often with Blaylock) impedes the flow of story, TP is at heart a storyteller, and ruthlessly shapes his material into narrative form. The result is one of the few genuinely original bodies of work in the modern sf/fantasy field. [JC]Other works: Night Moves (1986 chap); The Way Down the Hill (1986 chap).About the author: A Checklist of Tim Powers (1991 chap) by Tom Joyce and Christopher P. STEPHENS.See also: CLICHES; GOTHIC SF; HEROES; RECURSIVE SF; WRITERS OF THE FUTURE CONTEST. POWER SOURCES We live in an age of imminent resources crisis, anxiously anticipating the depletion of fossil-fuel reserves even while we become reluctant to rely on NUCLEAR POWER because of the POLLUTION problems caused by radioactive wastes. New options rely either on discoveries not yet made - the development of nuclear-fusion reactors, or of more efficient ways to convert solar energy into electricity - or on a political will which governments of all persuasions seem too short-sighted to exercise, as with tidal and wind power. There was, however, little trace of such anxieties in sf published before public concern began to grow; the future scenarios envisaged by early sf writers frequently assumed our energy resources to be potentially infinite.For most of human history, MACHINES were worked by three basic power sources: wind, water and muscle. For millennia people used fire as a source of heat and an agent of physical and chemical change without learning how to harness it as an energy source in mechanical work; then the invention of the steam engine precipitated the Industrial Revolution. Sf writers, following in the tracks of countless optimists who had tried to sidestep the problem by inventing "perpetual-motion machines", were only too ready to imagine future revolutions of similarly awesome scope. Electricity was often viewed as a quasimagical animating force, as in Mary SHELLEY's Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818; rev 1831) and Arthur Conan DOYLE's "The Los Amigos Fiasco" (1892). In Lord LYTTON's The Coming Race (1871) the key to energy-prosperity is vril, a kind of "atmospheric magnetism" administered by a device bearing a suspicious resemblance to a magic wand (a wand waved to considerable effect in The Vril Staff [1891] by "XYZ") ( PSEUDO-SCIENCE). Percy GREG's Across the Zodiac (1880) employs the equally mysterious "apergy", which seems to be ANTIGRAVITY with a seasoning of electrical mysticism; like vril, apergy was borrowed by other writers, including John Jacob ASTOR in A Journey in Other Worlds (1894), and it is the obvious model for the antigravity devices used in Robert CROMIE's A Plunge into Space (1890) and H.G. WELLS's THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON (1901). In Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1870; trans 1873) Jules VERNE was ready to assume that electrical energy could be drawn from sea water by quasimagical means. This optimistic outlook was boosted by the discovery of X-rays in 1895; for many years thereafter unlimited power was casually generated in sf stories by the invocation of magical "rays". The discovery of radioactivity only a few years later provided yet another jargon: power derived from atomic breakdown, spontaneous or forced. This, of course, turned out to be a real possibility, but its prominence in early sf owes more to convenience than to an assessment of its true potential. GENRE SF inherited this considerable jargon and understandably made the most of it. E.E. "Doc" SMITH's The Skylark of Space (1928; 1946) begins when a bathtub coated with "X, the unknown metal" reacts to the appropriate Open Sesame by releasing limitless quantities of "infra-atomic energy" - a moment cruelly parodied by the discovery of "Cheddite" in Harry HARRISON's Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers (1973).Given this confidence in the imminent availability of unlimited power, it is not surprising that the most thoughtful work of speculative writers in the early 20th century deals with the question of the social responsibility of scientists making such discoveries. Stories of wise men blackmailing the world into peace and social justice for all are common, but much more delicate exercises include Karel CAPEK's satire The Absolute at Large (1922; trans 1927) and his surreal "atomic phantasy" Krakatit (1924; trans 1925). The former concerns the "Karburator", which not only releases the energy bound in matter but also the spiritual "power" which went into its creation, generating worldwide religious fanaticism; a later satire with a related theme is Romain GARY's The Gasp (1973), in which the energy of immortal souls is harnessed as an industrial power source. Pulp sf celebrated the imminence of what Hugo GERNSBACK sometimes called the "Age of Power Freedom". Antigravity and wonderful rays were given carte blanche to defy the conservation laws - a situation encouraged rather than inhibited by the real-life discovery of atomic power, which was for a brief period taken as "proof" that limitless energy was actually available. Jack WILLIAMSON's "The Equalizer" (1947) is a thoughtful attempt to analyse the social consequences of free power for all, resurrecting the vril staff as a literary device. Raymond F. JONES's "Noise Level" (1952) supposes that the only thing standing between science and the discovery of limitless power is the belief of scientists in its impossibility. So convincing was this line of argument to readers of ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION that the story gave rise to several sequels, letters and articles criticizing contemporary patent law for its unfair treatment of perpetual motion and its blatant discrimination against discoveries of new fundamental principles in science. This optimism waned rapidly during the 1960s, although Theodore STURGEON's "Brownshoes"(1969) is a heartfelt parable about the difficulty of making a gift of perpetual motion to mankind in a world where so many vested interests (e.g., oil companies) would do their utmost to suppress it.The dependence of the developed countries on shrinking coal and oil reserves was brought home dramatically from 1973 on by the emergence of OPEC as a political force capable of dictating energy policy to the West. The POLITICS of energy came to play a major part in many near-future novels, including Frederik POHL's JEM: The Making of a Utopia (1979) and The Cool War (1981), the latter also being one of several stories to explore the idea of transmitting power in the form of microwaves down to Earth from solar cells mounted on satellites. The OPEC-precipitated oil crisis of the 1970s inspired such unlikely projects as the attempt to hijack the Middle-Eastern oilfields by TIME TRAVEL in Wolfgang JESCHKE's The Last Day of Creation (1981; trans 1982) and the use of exotic living machinery to extract oil in Rory HARPER's ALTERNATE-WORLD story Petrogypsies (1989); many TECHNOTHRILLERS are concerned with power sources in one way or another, standard plots often centring either on squabblings between multinational power companies or on the discovery - usually merely as a MCGUFFIN - of new ways of producing energy. Fantasies in which energy sources appear by miraculous fiat, like D.G. COMPTON's Ascendancies (1980), acquired a sharp cautionary note. A real measure of imaginative fervour with respect to marvellous power sources survives only in the matter of SPACESHIP propulsion, ranging from the solar yachts of Arthur C. CLARKE's "Sunjammer" (1964; vt "The Wind from the Sun"), which use the SOLAR WIND, to the BLACK-HOLE propulsion system for interplanetary vessels in the same author's Imperial Earth (1975). [BS]See also: ECOLOGY; SUN; TECHNOLOGY; UNDER THE SEA; WEAPONS. POWYS, JOHN COWPER (1872-1963) UK writer, resident for much of his career in the USA, though he returned to the UK in his later years. The novels of his old age, from Morwyn, or The Vengeance of God (1937) onwards, combine fantasy and sf elements in an attempt, sometimes obscure, to heat his eccentric mysticism into a unique amalgam: Porius (1951) is an Arthurian fantasy; The Inmates (1952) presents the "delusions" of a cast of mental patients in exaggerated terms and features a giant helicopter; Atlantis (1954) describes Odysseus's search for ATLANTIS; The Brazen Head (1956) deals with Roger Bacon (c1214-1292) as alchemist. Between 1957 and 1960, near the end of his life, JCP produced a sequence of remarkable FABULATIONS, some of them unhinged. They were all eventually published as Up and Out (coll 1957), the first novella of which is a post- HOLOCAUST tale in which four survivors witness the end of time, All or Nothing (1960), in which two children make a kind of tour of the Universe, Real Wraiths (1974 chap), Two and Two (1974 chap) and Three Fantasies (coll 1985).Of JCP's two brothers, both also writers, T(heodore) F(rancis) Powys (1875-1953) wrote much of strong fantasy interest. [JC]Other works: The Owl, the Duck, and - Miss Rowe! Miss Rowe! (1930 chap US); A Glastonbury Romance (1932 US); Maiden Castle (1936 US); Owen Glendower (1940 US); Lucifer: A Narrative Poem (1956); Homer and the Aether (1959).See also: END OF THE WORLD; FANTASTIC VOYAGES. POYER, DAVID C(HARLES) (1949- ) US writer who has published non-genre work as David Poyer, and sf variously as David C. Poyer, D.C. Poyer and David Andreissen. The Shiloh Project (1981) is set in the near future of an ALTERNATE WORLD in which the South had won the Battle of Gettysburg 120 years before. Star Seed (1982) as Andreissen places within a context of exceeding grimness - ALIENS have irrevocably poisoned Earth in an attempt to "terraform" it for their own needs - a tale of almost exuberant action: a surviving team composed of one human, one mutant and one dolphin subverts the eponymous starship to revolt against the "terraformers", then sets off to find another planet. In DCP's third and most interesting novel, Stepfather Bank (1987), set in a post- HOLOCAUST world dominated by a paternalist bank, a rogue poet hornswoggles and destabilizes the entire AI-controlled system, which has in fact been working to preserve humanity as well as to control it. [JC]See also: UNDER THE SEA. POYER, JOE Working name of US writer Joseph John Poyer (1939- ) for his fiction, beginning in 1965 with "Mission 'Red Clash'" for ASF, a magazine with which he was closely associated. Of his novels, Operation Malacca (1968), about the use of talking dolphins for military purposes, and North Cape (1969) are TECHNOTHRILLERS. Tunnel War (1979) is an ALTERNATE-WORLD tale involving the 1911 construction of a Channel Tunnel. JP has also written novels in other genres. [JC] POYSER, VICTORIA [r] ROWENA. PRAGNELL, FESTUS (1905-?1965) UK writer and policeman who first appeared in the US PULP MAGAZINES with "The Venus Germ" for Wonder Stories in 1932, written in collaboration with R.F. STARZL; he published 1 tale as by Francis Parnell (Festus Pragnell is not a pseudonym). His Don Hargreaves stories, all set on a lurid Mars, appeared in AMZ from 1938 ("Ghost of Mars") to 1943 ("Madcap of Mars"). His first sf novel, The Green Man of Kilsona (1936; rev vt The Green Man of Graypec 1950 US), describes a voyage into a miniature world ( GREAT AND SMALL). A second novel, The Terror from Timorkal (1946), sets a world-threatening crisis in Africa, where a new mineral suitable for the manufacture of superweapons is being exploited by unscrupulous politicians. His last work, "The Machine God Laughs" (1948), was the title story of The Machine God Laughs (anth 1949) ed William L. CRAWFORD. [JC]Other works: Thieves of the Air (c1943 chap) with Benson HERBERT. PRATCHETT, TERRY (1948- ) UK writer who began publishing with "The Hades Business" in Science Fantasy in 1963, and who for many years was in full-time employment, as a journalist until 1980, and as a publicity officer for the Central Electricity Generating Board until 1987; as a consequence, his early books were written and published intermittently. His first, The Carpet People (1971; rev 1992), is a fantasy for children. The Dark Side of the Sun (1976), sf, makes gentle fun of the alien-cluttered Known Space books of Larry NIVEN, though further targets, including Ron GOULART and Jack VANCE, are also affectionately addressed; STRATA (1981) also parodies Niven and other HARD-SF writers, in this case by depicting an artificial flat world embedded within Ptolemaic heavens - it is a POCKET UNIVERSE, in fact-seemingly constructed by the ancient Spindle Kings, though in fact Builder Gods were responsible. No GODS are given responsibility by name for the construction of Discworld, a fantasy creation borne through space on the back of a huge turtle, but an sf world-building premise does unseriously underlie the Discworld books, which made TP famous. The novels themselves are FANTASY. The series comprises The Colour of Magic (1983), The Light Fantastic (1986), Equal Rites (1987), Mort (1987), Sourcery (1988), Wyrd Sisters (1988), Pyramids (1989), Guards! Guards! (1989), Eric (1990) with Josh KIRBY (responsible for all the UK Discworld covers) given equal billing on the original edition (the text is heavily illustrated; paperback editions, lacking the illustrations, give TP alone as author), Moving Pictures (1990), Reaper Man (1991), Witches Abroad (1991), Small Gods (1992),Lords and Ladies (1992), Men at Arms (1993), Soul Music (1994) and Interesting Times (1994) with further titles projected; they make up the finest set of pure comedies the genre has yet seen. A second series, the Book of the Nomes CHILDREN'S-SF trilogy about small extraterrestrials caught for eons on Earth and attempting escape, comprises Truckers (1989), Diggers (1990) and Wings (1990), all three being assembled as The Bromeliad (omni 1993 US). Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (1990; rev 1990 US) with Neil GAIMAN is a fantasy about the END OF THE WORLD. The youthful protagonist of Only You Can Save Mankind (1992), sf for young adults, must help the space warriors of an arcade game ( GAMES AND TOYS) escape futile combat with human players; the sequel is Johnny and the Dead (1993), in which Johnny fights on behalf of its dead residents to keep developers from destroying a cemetery. [JC]See also: BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION AWARD; GREAT AND SMALL; HUMOUR; MAGIC; SATIRE; TERRAFORMING. PRATT, CORNELIA ATWOOD Working and maiden name of Cornelia Atwood Comer (? -1929), author with Richard Slee of Dr Berkeley's Discovery (1899), in which the doctor solves a mystery with his memory-cell-reading device ( PSYCHOLOGY). [JC] PRATT, (MURRAY) FLETCHER (1897-1956) US writer and historian who began his career as an author and translator for Hugo GERNSBACK's SCIENCE WONDER STORIES and its companions in the early 1930s; his first published story was "The Octopus Cycle" for AMZ in 1928 as with Irvin Lester (a Pratt pseudonym). While doing translations of German sf novels FP evolved what became a renowned method of extracting payment from the notoriously slow Gernsback organization: he would submit the first part of a novel, wait until it was set in type, then refuse to deliver the conclusion until paid. He undertook many collaborations, notably "City of the Living Dead" (1930) with Laurence MANNING, and contributed regularly to the sf magazines; but he is now best remembered for his fantasy, especially for his collaborations with L. Sprague DE CAMP (whom see for fuller details). The most successful were the Harold Shea stories, among which the main titles are: The Incomplete Enchanter (1940 Unknown; 1941), The Castle of Iron (1941 Unknown; 1950) and The Wall of Serpents (fixup 1960; vt The Enchanter Completed 1980 UK). The first 2 titles were assembled as The Compleat Enchanter: The Magical Misadventures of Harold Shea (omni 1975), and all 3 were eventually assembled as The Intrepid Enchanter (omni 1988 UK; vt The Complete Compleat Enchanter 1989 US). A second series with De Camp, the Gavagan's Bar CLUB STORIES, assembled in Tales from Gavagan's Bar (coll 1953; exp 1978), comprised mostly high-spirited tall tales, some of them sf. On their collaborations De Camp, as junior partner, would write a first draft after he and FP had jointly outlined the story; FP would then compose the final draft, to which De Camp would put the finishing editorial touches. This routine was varied on only a very few later short stories.FP's own fantasy novels are The Well of the Unicorn (1948 as by George U. Fletcher; 1967 as by FP) and The Blue Star (1952 in Witches Three ed anon FP; 1969); Witches Three was one of the Twayne Triplets series - Twayne being the publisher - each vol assembling 3 original novellas by different authors with a common theme or setting. The series idea was FP's, and he ed (also anon) 1 later vol, The Petrified Planet (anth 1952). In the end the project proved abortive, but the last title was the first SHARED-WORLD anthology to appear in the genre. FP also wrote several volumes of popular history and 3 books on rockets and space travel including Rockets, Jets, Guided Missiles and Space Ships (1951). [MJE/JC]Other works: The Land of Unreason (1941) and The Carnelian Cube (1948), both with De Camp; Double in Space (coll 1951; rev 1954 UK), in the 1st edn comprising the 2 novellas "Project Excelsior" and "The Wanderer's Return", the latter being replaced in the UK by "The Conditioned Captain", itself already published in the USA as The Undying Fire (1953); World of Wonder (anth 1951), a Twayne book but not a Triplet; Double Jeopardy (fixup 1952); Invaders from Rigel (1932 Wonder Stories Quarterly as "The Onslaught From Rigel"; 1960); Alien Planet (1932 Amazing Stories Quarterly as "A Voice across the Years"; 1962).About the author: Chapter 7 of Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerers (1976) by L. Sprague De Camp.See also: AUTOMATION; CLONES; DYSTOPIAS; FINLAND; HUMOUR; LEISURE; MAGIC; MATHEMATICS; PSYCHOLOGY; PUBLISHING; SCIENCE FANTASY; UTOPIAS. PREDATOR Film (1987). Amercent/American Entertainment/20th Century-Fox. Dir John McTiernan, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Elpidia Carrillo, Bill Duke. Screenplay Jim Thomas, John Thomas. 106 mins. Colour. A special-forces group undertaking a commando-style rescue mission in South America clashes bloodily with guerrillas and then very much more bloodily with the Predator: an intelligent ALIEN that can bend light to make itself almost invisible. The alien picks them off one by one, losing only to the Schwarzenegger character, by now reduced to primitive combat. The blend of the jungle-warfare (or Vietnam) scenario with the alien- INVASION genre is potentially interesting, but the treatment follows a wholly predictable pattern. Moreover on the evidence presented, the alien should have won. [PN]See also: MONSTER MOVIES. PREDATOR 2 Film (1990). Gordon/Silver/Davis/20th Century-Fox. Dir Stephen Hopkins, starring Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Ruben Blades, Maria Conchita Alonso, Bill Paxton. Screenplay Jim Thomas, John Thomas. 107 mins. Colour.This superior sequel to PREDATOR is a well oiled adrenaline machine. Los Angeles, 1997, is anarchic, with Jamaican and Colombian drug gangs, the LA police and the FBI all at each other's throats. A new ALIEN Predator, drawn by global hotspots, is trophy-hunting there on safari. A Black policeman succeeds where the creepy feds fail, and as a recognition of his valour receives a duelling pistol from yet more Predators who arrive for the finale. Stan Winston's alien design (great mandibles) is threatening and interesting, just right for a New Right Vigilante alien who picks off the bad guys first. P2 is pure and stylish exploitation-movie making, and shows a witty recognition of the same violence-begets-violence syndrome it abets. [PN]See also: CINEMA; MONSTER MOVIES. PREDICTION The most widespread false belief about sf among the general public is that it is a literature of prediction. Very few sf writers have ever claimed this to be the case, although Hugo GERNSBACK did see one function of his sf magazines as to paint an accurate picture of the future. Very few of the stories he published lived up to his editorializing. When John W. CAMPBELL Jr took over the editorship of ASF he demanded an increasing scientific plausibility from his writers, but a plausible-sounding "perhaps" is a long way from prediction.None of this has prevented sf fans from crowing with delight when an sf writer has made a good guess, and the mythology of sf is full of such examples. H.G. WELLS predicted the use of the tank in "The Land Ironclads" (1903), of aerial bombing in The War in the Air (1908) and of the atom bomb (more or less) in The World Set Free (1914). Ever since Einstein's mass-energy equations had been published, it had been generally known that enormous power was locked up in the atom, and stories about NUCLEAR POWER and atomic WEAPONS were commonplace in the 1920s and 1930s; they became very much more accurate in the early 1940s, and Cleve CARTMILL, Robert A. HEINLEIN and Lester DEL REY all wrote good predictive stories before Hiroshima. (Heinlein also predicted the water bed and the use of remote-control WALDOS.) Most early prediction stories were about future WAR, future weapons and the various possibilities of INVASION. Not many of them were correct; although several stories predicted war between the UK and Germany before 1914 (and, indeed, between the UK and almost everyone else), most of them centred on an invasion across the Channel which never took place. Edward Everett HALE wrote rather charmingly about an artificial satellite in "The Brick Moon" (1869). Arthur C. CLARKE wrote a celebrated article about communications satellites, "Extraterrestrial Relays" (Wireless World Oct 1945), but this was not a story; nor, sadly, did it become a patent. Jules VERNE is thought by many to have invented the submarine in Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (1870; trans as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea 1873), but in fact functional submarines had existed since at least the 18th century. One of Verne's best pieces of prediction was quite accidental; the moon-shot in De la terre a la lune (1865), which was published with the sequel Autour de la lune (1870) in From the Earth to the Moon (trans 1873), is fired from a spot very close to Cape Canaveral in Florida. Rudyard KIPLING predicted transatlantic aerial trade, specifically airmail postage, in With the Night Mail (1905; 1909 chap US). Erasmus DARWIN's poem The Temple of Nature (1802) preceded Verne, Wells and just about everybody else in its joyful description of airborne fleets of transport ships, war in the air, submarines and great CITIES with skyscrapers. Edwin BALMER had an early form of lie detector in The Achievements of Luther Trant (coll 1910) with William MacHarg. Hugo Gernsback had many technological predictions in Ralph 124C 41+ (1911-12; fixup 1925); this is one of the 18 stories of the period quoted by Everett BLEILER in Science-Fiction: The Early Years (1990) as anticipating tv. Nevil SHUTE predicted metal fatigue as a danger to aircraft in No Highway (1948), written shortly before several planes crashed for exactly that reason.It is a moderately impressive list, and could be made more so by multiplication of examples, but it proves very little. For every correct prediction a dozen were wrong, or correct only if facts are stretched a little; for example, PULP-MAGAZINE sf of the 1930s made much of DEATH RAYS; it is rather a dubious vindication to point out that laser beams can now be used as weaponry. The entry FUTUROLOGY (which includes several examples of real prediction) discusses the usual strategy of sf writers when dealing with the future; their imaginative scenarios are as often as not meant as awful warnings, and the emphasis is almost invariably on what could happen, not what will happen. It would hardly be fair to attack sf writers as false prophets when they seldom think of themselves as being in the prophecy business at all. In many ways their errors are more interesting than their successes, for they add to our knowledge of social history. Our expectations of the future change just as quickly as history itself changes; the AUTOMATION to which Gernsback and others looked forward in the teens of the century had already become a potential nightmare by the time of Kurt VONNEGUT Jr's PLAYER PIANO (1952; vt Utopia 14). Where sf is correct, of course, the explanation is not magic, just good research. Verne took much advice from his engineer friends and Shute spent many years as an aeronautical engineer - and, of course, many sf writers subscribe to scientific journals . . .One area where sf can claim some credit is SPACE FLIGHT; this was the central dream of sf, even during the years when respectable scientists regularly argued for its impossibility ( ROCKETS). But even here, though sf was right enough in the broad sense, it managed to get both the sociological and the technological details appallingly wrong. Most of Heinlein's early Moon rockets were built by capitalist enterprise, and not by the resources of the US Government; the Russian government, naturally, was not mentioned at all, even though it was in Russia that the first solidly grounded theorizing about space travel had taken place, in the work of Konstantin TSIOLKOVSKY, who wrote somewhat didactic but staggeringly accurate prophetic stories on the subject, beginning in the 19th century. The eponymous vessel in Heinlein's Rocket Ship Galileo (1947) is, absurdly, constructed largely by teenage boys in the backyard. Only William TENN ran counter to the free-enterprise spirit of most US sf by imagining in "Alexander the Bait" (1946) that the space programme would be run by giant government institutions, not individuals or even corporations. Sf stories about the first Moon landing almost invariably omit the single most dramatic detail, that the entire proceedings would be watched on Earth on tv; an exception is Arthur C. CLARKE's Prelude to Space (1951 US; vt Master of Space 1961 US; vt The Space Dreamers 1969 US). COMPUTERS are another area where sf's predictive abilities were ridiculously askew; so preoccupied were sf writers with the dramatic possibilities of the ROBOT that they hardly noticed that back in the real world mechanical men were of little interest to anyone while the computer - driven by the invention of the transistor, likewise missed by sf - was rapidly transforming the face of the future. Sf writers caught up, of course, but only after computers were becoming commonplace.Nearly all the examples cited are cases of predictions in the sphere of TECHNOLOGY; more interesting perhaps, and generally with a slightly higher success rate, were the predictions made about future POLITICS and SOCIOLOGY. Fortunately most DYSTOPIAS have not come into being in the real world, but certain aspects of them certainly have. One of the most interesting cases of prediction in the SOFT SCIENCES was Robert Louis STEVENSON's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), whose melodramatic suppositions were, even as he wrote, being conceptually paralleled by the work of Sigmund Freud (1865-1939), who also came to believe that the human mind had a primitive component, the id, not wholly masked by the more reputable ego.Occasionally the images thrown up by sf enter the public mind by an apparent process of osmosis, so that they become known even to those who do not read sf, and thereby create a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Some examples are given in FUTUROLOGY, which discusses this question. Perhaps the most notable is again the case of space flight, where it is certainly arguable that the US Government could never have got away with budgeting such large amounts of the national income on the space programme had the desire for space flight, largely catalysed by sf, not been so great.Most sf prediction is set in the NEAR FUTURE, and further examples are given in that entry. In the nature of things, a great many thematic entries in this encyclopedia necessarily deal in part with prediction. Apart from those already mentioned, entries where predictions in the social sciences predominate include CITIES; DISASTER, ECOLOGY, ECONOMICS, GAMES AND SPORTS, LEISURE, MEDIA LANDSCAPE and OVERPOPULATION; more technical areas where sf has made checkable predictions are COMMUNICATIONS, CYBERNETICS, ECOLOGY, MACHINES, MEDICINE, MOON, POLLUTION, POWER SOURCES, TRANSPORTATION and UNDER THE SEA; areas where sf predictions have not yet had the opportunity for a full testing, but may be tested in the next 50 years, are CLONES, CRYONICS, CYBORGS, GENETIC ENGINEERING, SPACE HABITATS, SPACESHIPS, SUSPENDED ANIMATION and TERRAFORMING. Many readers suppose that the CYBERPUNK predictions of human experience of VIRTUAL REALITIES achieved by plugging the brain into machines are truly predictive. A technical problem is that the neurons in the brain transmit information much more slowly than microprocessors do, which might make the brain/computer interface rather tricky - but time will tell.An sf scholar who has written interestingly about prediction is Chris MORGAN, whose relevant books (their remit extends well beyond sf to include popular science, journalism and so on) are The Shape of Futures Past: The Story of Prediction (1980) and, with David LANGFORD, Facts and Fallacies: A Book of Definitive Mistakes and Misguided Predictions (1981), the latter being especially funny and eye-opening. [PN] PREHISTORIC ROMANCES ANTHROPOLOGY; APES AND CAVEMEN (IN THE HUMAN WORLD); ORIGIN OF MAN. PREHISTORIC WORLD Roger CORMAN. PREISS, BYRON (CARY) (1953- ) US book packager, anthologist and co-author of 2 sf novels - Guts (1979) with C.J. Henderson and Dragonworld (1979) with J. Michael REAVES - and The Bat Family (1984), a juvenile. Though he has also edited and co-edited numerous ANTHOLOGIES, BP is best known as the most successful of the independent sf book packagers (i.e., creative middlemen who conceive projects, pitch them to publishers, commission writers, artists and others to produce the required material, etc.), founding Byron Preiss Visual Publications Inc (frequently abbreviated to BPVP) in 1974. The company's first project was the Weird Heroes anthology series - BP himself edited Weird Heroes #1 (anth 1975), #2 (anth 1975), #6 (anth 1977) and #8 (anth 1978) - which early demonstrated BP's interest in visual presentation. Among the early BPVP projects were a number of GRAPHIC NOVELS: adaptations included a version written by BP of Alfred BESTER's Tiger! Tiger! (1956 UK; rev vt The Stars My Destination 1957 US) published under the vt in 2 vols (graph 1979 and graph 1992), both vols illus Howard CHAYKIN; original works included Samuel R. DELANY's Empire (graph 1978) with Chaykin. In the 1980s, BPVP branched out into many different areas, from children's and young-adult books to art books, nature books and other projects.But most of the company's attention remained on the sf field, and BVPB was one of the forces behind the huge growth during that decade of SHARED-WORLD texts tied either to the work of well known authors or generated by BVPB itself, and almost always written on a SHARECROP basis. Projects of the first sort included Isaac Asimov's Robot City, a series of novels by various authors including David F. BISCHOFF, Arthur Byron COVER and William F. WU; Arthur C.Clarke's Venus Prime, all by Paul PREUSS (whom see for details); and Robert Silverberg's Time Tours, a series of novels by Wu and others. Projects generated by BPVP included U.S.S.A., to which authors like Tom DE HAVEN contributed individual volumes. Such projects - which BPVP was far from alone in producing - generated lively debate, some critics feeling that writers were being led to recycle the ideas of others rather than exploring their own. Defenders of the sharecrop argued that newer writers, who might otherwise have trouble selling a first novel, could more readily work for hire; and suggested that young readers might be encouraged to read more ambitious sf through initial exposure to accessible shared-world books. Other BPVP projects included the Next Wave line of novels, each focusing on a specific area of scientific speculation and accompanied by an essay on the subject by a notable scientist; titles included Red Genesis (1991) by S.C. SYKES, about colonizing MARS, with an essay by Eugene Mallove; and Alien Tongue (1991) by Stephen LEIGH, about ALIEN contact, with an essay by Rudy RUCKER.Also during the 1980s, BP produced several lavishly illustrated, ambitious theme anthologies combining fiction and nonfiction. The Planets (anth 1985) featured fiction by Robert SILVERBERG, Jack WILLIAMSON and others, and essays by scientists such as Dale P. Cruikshank. The Universe (anth 1987) included fiction by Poul ANDERSON and Gene WOLFE along with essays on COSMOLOGY and BLACK HOLES. The Microverse (anth 1989) included the NEBULA-winning "At the Rialto" by Connie WILLIS along with nonfiction from Gerald Feinberg (1933-1992) and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon M. Lederman. First Contact (anth 1990) was a similar treatment of CETI. Other anthologies have included the Ultimate series: The Ultimate Dracula (anth 1991) with David Keller, Megan Miller and (anon) Martin H. GREENBERG; The Ultimate Werewolf (anth 1991) with John BETANCOURT, Keller, Miller and (anon) Greenberg; The Ultimate Frankenstein (anth 1991) with Keller, Miller, Betancourt and (anon) Greenberg; The Ultimate Dinosaur: Past, Present, Future (anth 1992) with Robert Silverberg; further titles projected.Despite the controversy surrounding some of his sharecropped projects, BP should be recognized for his contribution to the visual presentation of sf, and for reaching out to a younger readership through such projects as the new Tom Swift adventures ( TOM SWIFT for details), the Dragonflight series of short novels, and the Camelot World series. Of all the book packagers, BP is likely the only one from his period to have made any real creative contribution to the field. [RKJK]Other works: The Art of Leo and Diane Dillon (1981); The Secret: A Treasure Hunt (anth 1982). PRENTISS, CHARLOTTE Charles PLATT. PRESCOT, DRAY Kenneth BULMER. PRESIDENT'S ANALYST, THE Film (1967). Panpiper/Paramount. Written/dir Theodore J. Flicker, starring James Coburn, Godfrey Cambridge, Severn Darden, Joan Delaney, Pat Harrington, Barry McGuire. 104 mins. Colour.A psychoanalyst (Coburn), hired to listen to the President's troubles, breaks down under the strain. He takes refuge with a "typical" US family who describe themselves as "militant liberals" (the husband collects guns, the wife takes karate lessons and their son specializes in wire-tapping). Pursued by the FBI (all very short men), the CIA (all college graduates with pipes and tweed jackets), Russians, Chinese and others, the hero repeatedly avoids death by a hairsbreadth; he then learns that the power secretly running the USA is the Telephone Company (manned by bland, smiling ROBOTS), which plans to insert a miniature telephone in the head of every person in the world. The film ends with the robots still in control. Flicker's pleasing SATIRE is witty and literate, and contrives to have it both ways by spoofing PARANOIA movies while actually exploiting our genuine (and well grounded) paranoias. [JB/PN]See also: CINEMA. PRESSOR BEAM FORCE FIELD. PREUSS, PAUL (1942- ) US writer who worked in film production for a decade before beginning to write popular-science articles. He began to publish sf with The Gates of Heaven (1980) which, with Re-Entry (1981), comprises a very loose sequence, its main linkage being the assumption that BLACK HOLES may be used to travel through both space and time. The second volume in particular demonstrates considerable virtuosity in its presentation of a SPACE-OPERA venue which is opened up - though at times rendered almost incomprehensibly complicated-through a plot which encompasses various timelines, the protagonist's discovery that he is his own beloved guru, and much action. Later novels back away sharply from such exuberance, gearing themselves more strictly to extrapolations based on contemporary science. The first of these, Broken Symmetries (1983), concerns the human and political implications of the markedly plausible discovery by SCIENTISTS of a subatomic particle of explosive military potential; the tone of the book has several times been compared with that of Gregory BENFORD's TIMESCAPE (1980). HUMAN ERROR (1985) similarly examines the ethical implications of a development in GENETIC ENGINEERING, bearing some resemblance to the practically simultaneous BLOOD MUSIC (1985) by Greg BEAR; while Starfire (1988) gives a verismo view of a NEAR-FUTURE space expedition.Rather less interestingly, PP then became involved in the Venus Prime sequence of novels tied to works and some concepts generated by Arthur C. CLARKE. The sequence - Breaking Strain * (1987), Maelstrom * (1988), Hide and Seek * (1989), The Medusa Encounter * (1990), The Diamond Moon * (1990) and The Shining Ones * (1991) - features the long hegira of its bio-engineered protagonist, Sparta, in her search through the Solar System for the secret of her birth (or, perhaps, fabrication). It closes with the 6th volume, and it may be hoped that the 1990s will see PP once again apply his sharp abilities to fully independent work. [JC]See also: ASTEROIDS; BIOLOGY. PRICE, E(DGAR) HOFFMANN (TROOPER) (1898-1988) US writer whose career lasted 64 years. He served in WWI, graduated West Point in 1923, and began to publish weird fiction - the genre for which he is remembered - with "Triangle with Variations" for Droll Stories in 1924. By the time he stopped writing for the PULP MAGAZINES in the 1950s he had published hundreds of stories in dozens of outlets, sometimes as Hamlin Daly, and often drawing upon Oriental and near-Eastern experiences for his backgrounds. His best known story from this period is probably "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" (1934 Weird Tales) with H.P. LOVECRAFT, a personal friend. Some of his early work was later assembled in Strange Gateways (coll 1967) and Far Lands, Other Days (coll 1975).In his retirement EHP became annoyed at being remembered only as one of the "Lovecraft Circle", and in 1979 he resumed writing. In his final decade he wrote a Western, two fantasies - The Devil Wives of Li-Fong (1979) and The Jade Enchantress (1982) - and the loose Operation sequence of sf novels: Operation Misfit (1980), Operation Longlife (1983), in which EHP expressed a loathing of doctors and argued for the individual's right to die, Operation Exile (1986) and Operation Isis (1987). The sequence is set in a DYSTOPIAN future: it warns about Marxism and comments on the weakness and decadence of the US Government; the heroes are always competent, the plots often chaotic. Since he claimed to be writing novels of ideas, it should be mentioned that EHP was an astrologer, a Theosophist, a practising Buddhist and a conservative Republican, and ideas from those fields do indeed percolate through his work. EHP may be remembered primarily for his vivid biographical sketches of his friends Robert E. HOWARD, Lovecraft and Clark Ashton SMITH. A volume of reminiscences and a late mystery remain unpublished. [RB]See also: SMALL PRESSES AND LIMITED EDITIONS. PRICE, ROGER (TAYLOR) (1921- ) US writer and tv personality, best known in the 1950s for his cartoon Droodles. In his sf novel, J.G., the Upright Ape (1960), the eponymous silver-haired articulate gorilla ( APES AND CAVEMEN), having been transported to the USA, serves as a focus for much amiable but moderately far-reaching SATIRE. He is not to be confused with the Roger Price (1941- ) who wrote ties for The TOMORROW PEOPLE . [JC] PRIEST, CHRISTOPHER (McKENZIE) (1943- ) UK writer, married 1981-7 to Lisa TUTTLE and from 1988 to Leigh KENNEDY. He has published several novels (none apparently sf) under various pseudonyms, of which only 2 have been disclosed: John Luther Novak and Colin Wedgelock. CP began to publish sf with "The Run" for Impulse in 1966; much of his early work, which was relatively undistinguished, was assembled as Transplantationen (coll trans Tony Westermayr 1972 Germany), appearing in English only later as Real-Time World (coll 1974).CP's first novel, Indoctrinaire (1970; rev 1979), is a bleak but fatally abstract tale of imprisonment set in the heart of an unrealized Brazil, where an unhelpful time-gate seems to lurk. His second, Fugue for a Darkening Island (1972; vt Darkening Island 1972 US), is much stronger; set in an England of the NEAR FUTURE, it deals with POLITICS and racial tension, focusing on the arrival of African refugees whose homeland has been destroyed by nuclear WAR. His third novel, INVERTED WORLD (1974; vt The Inverted World 1974 US), marked the climax of his career as a writer whose work resembled GENRE SF, and remains one of the two or three most impressive pure-sf novels produced in the UK since WWII; the hyperboloid world on which the action takes place is perhaps the strangest planet invented since Mesklin in Hal CLEMENT's MISSION OF GRAVITY (1954), though the characters pace through their lives with a haunted lassitude which seems characteristically British. The tale deals with paradoxes of PERCEPTION and CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH, and is a striking addition to that branch of sf which deals with the old theme of appearance-versus-reality. (The Making of the Lesbian Horse [1979 chap] is CP's spoof continuation of the book.) The Space Machine (1976) is a cleverly plotted pastiche of the work of H.G. WELLS, incorporating the author himself in the storyline ( RECURSIVE SF) which proposes plot-explanations for some of the narrative gaps left by Wells in THE TIME MACHINE (1895) and War of the Worlds (1898); in its literary focus and its retrospection, the book marked, in hindsight, a significant shift in CP's work. With A Dream of Wessex (1977; vt The Perfect Lover 1977 US), CP began to write tales whose increasingly intricate plots had to be read as maps through which one explored not the world (as in conventional sf) but the protagonists. 39 human minds are meshed into a computer net which projects them (or their mental simulacra) forwards from 1983 into a VIRTUAL-REALITY world of their consensus imagination, 150 years in the future, in which they "live" without memory of the real world. The entire book is a metaphor about the creative process and its relation to solipsism. The Dream Archipelago stories assembled, with others, in AN INFINITE SUMMER (coll 1979), intensify the sense that CP's landscapes had now become forms of expression of the psyche, and are of intense interest for the dream-like convolutions of psychic terrain so displayed. The Dream Archipelago itself is a surreally unspecific rendering of England as a land half-sunk beneath the ocean (a vision perhaps influenced by Richard JEFFERIES's After London [1885]), and is a powerful late-century representation of Sehnsucht (C.S. LEWIS's expression to describe a longing for something that hovers, forever unattainable, beyond the terms of reality).CP's next novels - The Affirmation (1981), also set partly in the Dream Archipelago, and THE GLAMOUR (1984; rev 1984 US) - move even more radically away from the regions of sf or fantasy. They are his best work to that point and, although representing to some sf readers an apostasy from the field, may profitably be read as explorations of ravenous psyches whose hunger expresses itself through the ingestion of or control over "unreal" (or fantasy) worlds. It might be possible to suggest that The Affirmation is a tale of ALTERNATE WORLDS and THE GLAMOUR a tale whose protagonist literally becomes invisible ( INVISIBILITY); but these readings do scant justice to their intense and conscious inwardness. Though it shares a good deal of thematic material with these two, The Quiet Woman (1990) marks a decided return to the external world. Set in the near future, with radioactive contamination impinging upon the southern counties, the tale is a scathing vision of an England rapidly becoming a DYSTOPIA.CP was Associate Editor of FOUNDATION 1974-7. His anthologies are Anticipations (anth 1978) and, with Robert P. HOLDSTOCK, Stars of Albion (anth 1979). In The Last Deadloss Visions (1987 chap; various revs and addenda 1987 chap; rev 1988 chap) he produced a cruel analysis of Harlan ELLISON's non-completion of Last Dangerous Visions. [PN/JC]See also: BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION AWARD; CITIES; DIMENSIONS; DISASTER; FANTASTIC VOYAGES; HISTORY OF SF; MARS; MATHEMATICS; MEDIA LANDSCAPE; MILFORD SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS' CONFERENCE; NEW WAVE; NEW WRITINGS IN SF; PARALLEL WORLDS; POLITICS; STEAMPUNK; TRANSPORTATION. PRIESTLEY, J(OHN) B(OYNTON) (1894-1984) UK novelist, playwright and man of letters, formidably productive from the teens of the century until about 1980; he wrote over 70 plays, many extremely popular in their day, and as many books, though he is now remembered chiefly for The Good Companions (1929), a huge picaresque novel in praise of the English. He was married to Jacquetta HAWKES. A surprising amount of his work makes use of sf or fantasy themes and devices, though sometimes in a delusional frame, as with Albert Comes Through (1933), whose eponymous hero's experiences in an absurd cinematic universe are explained as a fever-dream. The Thirty-First of June (1961) is a fantasy for young-adult readers. But sf concerns do propel Adam in Moonshine (1927) and Benighted (1927; vt The Old Dark House 1928 US) - both assembled as Benighted and Adam in Moonshine (omni 1932) - The Doomsday Men (1938), where HOLOCAUST threatens; some of the stories about time (a recurring theme) in The Other Place (coll 1953); The Magicians (1954), JBP's closest approach to a full-fledged sf novel, featuring the use of a wonder drug to spiritually invade the mind of a tycoon; Low Notes on a High Level (1954), about the Dobbophone and other self-consciously daft instruments of MUSIC; Saturn Over the Water (1961), a thriller with sf overtones; The Shapes of Sleep (1962), which posits the use of compulsively evocative shapes in advertising; and a juvenile, Snoggle (1971), in which three children and an old man save an ALIEN pet from bigoted Wiltshire locals and are thanked for their troubles by its masters, advanced beings in a flying saucer ( UFOS).Nevertheless, JBP never showed much aptitude for the traditional sf tale, and much of his work has an effect more of bullying noise than bluff energy. His ideas about the nature of the genre were unkindly. "They Come from Inner Space" (1953 New Statesman) - later assembled in Thoughts in the Wilderness (coll 1957), which also contains an sf story, "The Hesperides Conference" - makes what may be the first use of the term INNER SPACE in print, and goes on to declare that the essential outward movement of sf was "a move, undertaken in secret despair, in the wrong direction". Fittingly, of JBP's considerable sf output, the most interesting titles are those tales and plays which derive their motor impulse from the consolatory time theories of J.W. DUNNE, who felt that various moments in time - whose relationships to one another were, in a sense, geographical - could, in that sense, be visited. Plays like Time and the Conways (1937) and I Have Been Here Before (1937), both assembled as Two Time-Plays (omni 1937), along with Dangerous Corner (1932), all assembled as Three Time Plays (omni 1947), made extensive use of Dunne's theories. Other plays concerned with time included Johnson over Jordan (1939), whose hero posthumously prepares himself for Heaven, and Summer Day's Dream (1950). In the nonfiction Man and Time (1964) and the essays in Over the Long High Wall (1972) JBP meditated speculatively on the same themes. In the end, perhaps surprisingly for a writer so otherwise aggressive, sf served not as a technique to mount challenges but as a form of adjustment. [JC]Other works: At least 2 of JBP's teleplays are of genre interest: "Doomsday for Dyson" (1958), about atomic holocaust, and "Linda at Pulteney's" (1969), a fantasy.About the author: J.B. Priestley: Portrait of an Author (1970) by Susan COOPER; J.B. Priestley (1988) by Vincent Brome.See also: HISTORY IN SF; THEATRE; TIME TRAVEL. PRIESTLEY, MARGARET (?1919- ) UK writer who, with Meriol TREVOR, created in childhood an ALTERNATE WORLD called the World Dionysius, where both set several novels. MP's were The Ring of Fortune * (1948), The Three Queens * (1950) and Tomay is Loyal * (1951). They were marginally less effective than Trevor's, though both authors had a tendency to fall back on RURITANIAN conventions when more radical displacements might have generated a more sustained sequence. [JC] PRIME PRESS Short-lived (the business had failed by 1953) US SMALL PRESS specializing in sf; based in Philadelphia, founded in 1947 by Oswald TRAIN (editorial) and James Williams, along with two fans, Alfred C. Prime and Armand E. Waldo, who later dropped out. Several of PP's few titles are of interest, including the first-published books of Lester DEL REY, George O. SMITH and Theodore STURGEON: respectively, . . . And Some Were Human (coll 1948), Venus Equilateral (coll of linked stories 1947) and Without Sorcery (coll 1948; cut vt Not without Sorcery 1961). [MJE] PRINCE OF DARKNESS Film (1987). Alive. Dir John CARPENTER, starring Donald Pleasence, Jameson Parker, Victor Wong, Lisa Blount. Screenplay Martin Quatermass (Carpenter). 101 mins. Colour.An old priest, guardian of a vat containing Satan as a green liquid, dies. Young physicists are brought to the derelict church by another worried priest (Pleasence) to analyse the strange powers here. The church is surrounded by bag ladies and vagrants (one being rock-star Alice Cooper) who kill anybody who leaves. Some of the scientists are possessed by telekinetic jets of Satan-liquid, and Anti-God attempts to manifest Himself through a mirror.Carpenter's worst film, resembling a first draft rather than a finished product, inept and barely coherent, POD nevertheless has points of considerable interest. Often an apparent sf film turns out to be HORROR; this is an apparent horror film that turns out to be sf. (Carpenter's screenwriter pseudonym, Quatermass, is in clear homage to Nigel KNEALE, whose scriptwriting speciality has been to rationalize supernatural forces in scientific terms.) The ambitious but confused script evokes Godel and Schrodinger in the first few minutes, explains precognition as TACHYON messages from the future, solemnly broods on indeterminacy and the spiritual inferences to be drawn from quantum mechanics, and appears to see the Anti-God as theological ANTIMATTER present from the beginning, which is in fact a form of the Manichean heresy. [PN] PRINGLE, DAVID (WILLIAM) (1950- ) Scottish editor and writer, resident in England, who served as Research Fellow for the SCIENCE FICTION FOUNDATION in East London 1978-9 and as editor of FOUNDATION 1980-86. With Malcolm EDWARDS he was one of the prime movers in the 8-strong collective which founded INTERZONE in 1982, eventually becoming its sole editor and publisher in 1988 and co-editing all 5 anthologies taken from the magazine: Interzone: The First Anthology (anth 1985) with John CLUTE and Colin GREENLAND, Interzone: The 2nd Anthology (anth 1987) with Clute and Simon Ounsley, Interzone: The 3rd Anthology (anth 1988) with Clute and Ounsley, Interzone: The 4th Anthology (anth 1989) with Clute and Ounsley, and Interzone: The 5th Anthology (anth 1991) with Clute and Lee Montgomerie. As Series Editor for GW Books 1988-91 he was responsible (in tandem, from 1990, with Neil Jones) for commissioning and publishing several SHARED-WORLD fantasy and sf novels tied to GAMES WORKSHOP games like Warhammer and Dark Future, notably including titles by Kim NEWMAN (as Jack Yeovil), Brian M. STABLEFORD (as Brian Craig) and David S. GARNETT (as David Ferring). For GW he also edited some tied anthologies, including Ignorant Armies * (anth 1989), Wolf Riders * (anth 1989) and Red Thirst * (anth 1990) in the Warhammer series, Route 666 * (anth 1990) in the Dark Future series, and Deathwing * (anth 1990) with Neil Jones in the Warhammer 40,000 series. In 1991 he began a second magazine, Million: The Magazine about Popular Fiction, some of whose articles deal with sf or fantasy writers.As a critic, DP's long advocacy of the works of J.G. BALLARD was developed in J.G. Ballard: The First Twenty Years (anth 1976 chap) ed with James Goddard, Earth is the Alien Planet: J.G. Ballard's Four-Dimensional Nightmare (1979 chap US) and J.G. Ballard: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography (1984 US). He then produced several guides to sf, fantasy and popular literature in alphabetized format: Science Fiction: 100 SF Authors (1978 chap), Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels: An English-Language Selection, 1949-1984 (1985), Imaginary People: A Who's Who of Modern Fictional Characters (1987; rev 1989), Modern Fantasy: The Hundred Best Novels: An English-Language Selection, 1946-1987 (1988) and The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction: An A-Z of SF Books (1990) with Ken Brown (uncredited). DP's lack of an intuitive grasp of US sf could perhaps be detected in the 1949 inception date for books covered in the first of these (a significant few years after the beginning of the SMALL-PRESS movement in the USA), but the 200 short essays accumulated in that and the volume on fantasy provide a valuable conspectus of fantastic literature over the chosen timespan. DP also edited a retrospective collection of Theodore STURGEON's stories, A Touch of Sturgeon (coll 1987 UK). He contributed some major entries to the first edition of this encyclopedia and revised his BALLARD entry for the current edition. [JC]See also: SF MAGAZINES. PRISON COLONY, THE NO ESCAPE. PRISONER, THE UK tv series (1967-8). An Everyman Films prod for ATV. Prod David Tomblin. Created, starring and partly written/dir Patrick McGoohan; other writers included George Anthony Skene, Terence Feely; other dirs included Don Chaffey, Pat Jackson. Script ed George Markstein. 17 50min episodes. Colour.In this KAFKA-esque, sf-related series a UK ex-secret agent (McGoohan), who for unknown reasons has resigned from his organization, is gassed in his apartment and wakes to find himself in The Village: a mysterious establishment whose geographical location is ambiguous and whose inhabitants consist of either rebels like himself or stooges of "Them" - the people who run the place. The former spy (McGoohan had previously starred in a spy series called Danger Man) is unable to discover just who "They" are - perhaps the communists, perhaps his own government. His every movement in The Village - externally a cross between a bland Mediterranean holiday camp and an old people's home (in reality the bizarre resort of Portmeirion, Wales, designed by the architect Sir Clough Williams-Ellis [1883-1978] from 1926 until his death) - is watched by "Number Two" and his staff on video. Various episodes concern his attempts to escape from The Village, his neverending search for the unseen Number One, and the efforts of the different Number Twos (they change with each episode) to break him and discover why he resigned. The most obvious sf elements are the balloon-shaped ROBOT watchdogs and the complex brainwashing and surveillance equipment, including devices that project thoughts onto a screen.McGoohan is a puritan (no kissing on screen) and an acknowledged political conservative. The many liberal supporters of the series may have misinterpreted its libertarian emphasis on individual strength, especially the power to resist incursions into one's mind, seeing the series instead as a plea for human rights and especially democratic freedoms. The excellent, surrealist last episode interestingly renders the POLITICS of the whole series retrospectively ambiguous by suggesting that our metaphorical prisons may be self-imposed. The Prisoner who continues to resist brainwashing may have brainwashed himself into a prison of the mind. The series' thesis may be that freedom is impossible, as is opting out.TP, not popular at first, soon developed an enthusiastic cult following which has lasted for over two decades, especially for its thought-provoking aspects and its deliberate bafflements, unusual in tv drama. It has been repeated on tv several times in the UK and shown in the USA. Its confident manipulations of Surrealist and sf themes, its literate scripts, its sophisticated understanding of visual metaphor and its enjoyably obsessive evocations of a whole range of fantasies of PARANOIA together created what is in the opinion of many - often those discontented with SPACE OPERA - the finest sf tv series to date. Its strengths in many respects resemble those of the late-1980s tv cult favourite Twin Peaks. Novels based on the series are The Prisoner * (1969) by Thomas M. DISCH, The Prisoner No. 2 * (1969) by David MCDANIEL and The Prisoner 3: A Day in the Life * (1970) by Hank STINE. Two of several books about the series are The Official Prisoner Companion (1988), by Matthew White and Jaffer Ali, and The Prisoner and Danger Man (1989) by Dave Rogers. A comic-book series (4 numbers 1988-9), originally from DC COMICS, served as a sequel to the tv series. [JB/PN]See also: GAMES AND TOYS. PRISONERS OF GRAVITY Canadian tv series (1990-93). TVOntario; also broadcast on La Chaine Francaise. Prod/dir Gregg Thurlbeck, written and presented Rick Green. Four seasons. 30 mins per programme. Colour.The premise of this vigorous and surprisingly successful series - not a drama series but a talk show about speculative fiction, probably the only such programme in the world - was that Commander Rick (Rick Green) operates a pirate broadcasting station from the communications satellite in which he lives, and intercepts TVOntario's signals once a week, substituting his own quickfire discussions of various sf themes. Quick cutting and Rick's aggressive, well informed, jokey style (he is an ex-comedian as well an an sf expert) won the programme a cult following. The major cultural breakthrough was Rick's presentation of COMICS artists as deserving equal guest time with sf writers, and viewers have been able to see for themselves that, say, Neil GAIMAN, Jean GIRAUD, Frank MILLER and Bill SIENKEWICZ appear just as thoughtful as, say, Douglas ADAMS, Gregory BENFORD, Harlan ELLISON and William GIBSON. Horror writers such as Clive Barker (1952- ) and fantasy writers such as Guy Gavriel Kay (1954- ) were also included. The wide range of themes explored covers everything from Chaos Theory to Women's Issues and The Family. POG won an Aurora award in 1994, posthumously so to speak, for "Best Other Work in English". Reruns of the series are expected on the new Canada Discovery channel. [PN] PRISONS COLONIZATION OF OTHER WORLDS; CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. PRIVILEGE Film (1967). Worldfilm Services and Memorial Enterprises/Universal. Dir Peter WATKINS, starring Paul Jones, Jean Shrimpton, Mark London, Max Bacon. Screenplay Norman Bogner, based on a story by Johnny Speight. 103 mins. Colour.A successful rock-star (Jones) is used by a NEAR-FUTURE UK government as a puppet MESSIAH to manipulate the opinions of the youthful citizens. He is forced to change his image to suit the plans of the Establishment, but rebels, only, ironically, to be destroyed by his teenage followers. Watkins, who also directed The WAR GAME (1965), GLADIATORERNA (1968) and PUNISHMENT PARK (1970), thumps his tub with a heavy hand; but, though simplistic, P was ahead of its time in its depiction of government attempts to co-opt and domesticate the disaffection of the young, a theme of real importance, still rare in the commercial CINEMA - which, after all, does much the same thing. [JB/PN] PRIX APOLLO AWARDS. PRIX DU DANGER, LE (vt The Prize of Peril) Film (1983). Swanie/TFI/UGC-Top 1/Avala. Dir Yves Boisset, starring Gerard Lanvin, Michel Piccoli, Marie-France Pisier. Screenplay Boisset, Jan Curtelin, based on "The Prize of Peril" (1958) by Robert SHECKLEY. 98 mins, cut to 88 mins in English-dubbed version. Colour.In this French/Yugoslav coproduction, a man volunteers for the tv game show "The Prize of Peril", in which anyone who can escape being murdered in the streets by trained killers (the whole event being televised) can win large cash prizes. To a large extent the game is rigged. The resourceful victim makes it back to the studio and exposes the sham before being carried off in a straitjacket. A fairly routine action movie masquerades as a morally outraged assault on media corruption. A later film, The RUNNING MAN (1987), bears an astonishing resemblance. [PN] PRIX JULES VERNE AWARDS. PRIX ROSNY AINE AWARDS. PRIZE OF PERIL, THE Le PRIX DU DANGER . PROCTOR, GEO(RGE) W. (1946- ) US writer who began publishing sf with The Esper Transfer (1978), a modest sf adventure whose telepathic protagonist must escape various dangers. Although varied in its use of sf devices, and inventively constructed so as to allow its protagonists some room for personal relationships, his work has not exhibited sufficient innovation or energy to bring him into wide repute. Other sf titles include Shadowman (1980), again involving telepaths, Fire at the Center (1981) and Starwings (1984), both involving TIME TRAVEL, and Stellar Fist (1989), in which the discovery of a doom machine must somehow be controlled, once again through the actions of a telepath. GWP's collaborations with Andrew J. OFFUTT, both writing as John Cleve - Spaceways #7: The Manhuntress * (1982) and #10: The Yoke of Shen * (1983) - and his two "V" ties-The Chicago Conversion * (1985) and The Texas Run * (1985) - are of less interest. GWP ed Lone Star Universe: Speculative Fiction from Texas (anth 1976) with Steve UTLEY, which presents material of considerable interest, and The Science-Fiction Hall of Fame #3: The Nebula Winners 1965-69 (anth 1982) with Arthur C. CLARKE. [JC]Other works: The Swords of Raemllyn fantasy sequence, all with Robert E. VARDEMAN: A Yoke of Magic (1985), To Demons Bound (1985), Blood Fountain (1985), The Beasts of the Mist (1986) and For Crown and Kingdom (1987). PROJECT MOONBASE Film (1953). Galaxy Pictures/Lippert. Dir Richard Talmadge, starring Donna Martell, Ross Ford, Larry Johns, Hayden Rorke. Screenplay Robert A. HEINLEIN, Jack Seaman. 63 mins, cut to 51 mins. B/w.This rarely seen film is of interest mainly because Heinlein worked on the screenplay. A three-strong expedition takes off from a space station orbiting Earth to select a site for a Moonbase from lunar orbit, but their rocket crashlands on the Moon. One of the three - a foreign spy (Johns) - subsequently dies and the others, a man (Ford) and the woman team leader, coyly named Colonel Breiteis (Martell), though doomed, are married via television by the President of the USA (who, in a typical Heinlein touch, is also a woman). The ambitious idea, with its confident taking for granted of future TECHNOLOGY, is undermined by melodramatics, poor performances, and sets designed for tv, this being the theatrical release of an unsold pilot for a projected tv series, Ring Around the Moon. [JB] PROJECT UFO US tv series (1978-79). A Mark VIII Ltd Production/NBC. Executive prod Jack Webb; created Harold Jack Bloom; prod Col. William T. Coleman. Starring William Jordan as Major Jake Gatlin, Caskey Swaim as Sgt Harry Fisk, Aldine King as Libby Virdon, Edward Winter (season 2) as Capt Ben Ryan. Dirs included Richard Quine, Dennis Donnelly, Robert Leeds, John Patterson, Rich Greer. Writers included Harold Jack Bloom, Donald L. Gold, Robert Blees. 2 seasons, 26 50min numbered episodes. Colour.In terms of the size of viewing audience, this was the most successful US sf tv series ever made. The premise is that USAF investigators, belonging to a special unit code-named Project Blue Book, each week look into a supposed UFO (i.e., flying-saucer) sighting. Some of the cases prove to be hoaxes, some misunderstandings of other phenomena; but most turn out to be genuine. PUFO, which assumed the air of drama-documentary, was tabloid tv at its most naked, aimed directly and cynically at a credible audience greedy for wonders. Given the overall similarity of the plot-lines, it is astonishing that 2 seasons were wrung from it. Executive prod Webb is remembered by older viewers as the gravel-voiced presenter of Dragnet. [PN]See also: PARANOIA. PROJECT X Film (1987). Amercent Films-American Entertainment Partners/20th Century-Fox. Dir Jonathan Kaplan, starring Matthew Broderick, Helen Hunt, Bill Sadler, Johnny Ray McGhee. Screenplay Stanley Weiser, based on a story by Weiser, Lawrence Lasker. 103 mins, cut to 91 mins. Colour.A trainee airman (Broderick), in trouble for joyriding, is sent to work in an experimental USAF establishment where chimps are being trained in flying simulators; the sinister premise (gradually uncovered) is that, if successfully taught, they can be used on operations where pilots would be subjected to heavy radiation. Several chimps are deliberately irradiated to death. The young airman, who has bonded with an intelligent chimp that understands sign language, helps foment rebellion, escapes with the chimps, and en passant prevents a nuclear meltdown; of course, the chimps themselves finally save the day - by flying a plane to safety. Wholly absurd, emotionally manipulative and anthropomorphically sentimental, the film is nevertheless very neatly crafted, evoking with real panache, through its jittery, unnerving imagery, all kinds of subtexts that are more intelligent than the plot would suggest. [PN] PROMETHEUS AWARD AWARDS. PRONZINI, BILL Working name of US writer William John Pronzini (1943- ), prolific and admired in several genres, notably crime fiction, since his first book, The Stalker (1971). Though he has published some very effective HORROR, including Masques: A Novel of Terror (1981), and several other novels - including Night Screams (1979) and Prose Bowl (1980), both with Barry N. MALZBERG, the latter being sf - as well as Beyond the Grave (1986) with Marcia Muller, his main importance to the field of the fantastic lies in his anthologies. Relevant titles include: Dark Sins, Dark Dreams: Crime in Science Fiction (anth 1978) with Malzberg; Midnight Specials (anth 1978); Werewolf! (anth 1979); The End of Summer (anth 1979; vt The Fifties: The End of Summer 1979), Shared Tomorrows: Science Fiction in Collaboration (anth 1979) and Bug-Eyed Monsters (anth 1980), these 3 being with Malzberg; Voodoo!: A Chrestomathy of Necromancy (anth 1980), Mummy!: A Chrestomathy of Crypt'ology (anth 1981) and Creature!: A Chrestomathy of "Monstery" (anth 1981), all assembled as The Arbor House Necropolis - Voodoo! Mummy! Ghoul! (omni 1981; with 1 story cut, vt Tales of the Dead 1986); The Arbor House Treasury of Mystery and Suspense (anth 1981; with 1 story cut, vt Great Tales of Mystery and Suspense 1985) with Malzberg and Martin H. GREENBERG; The Arbor House Treasury of Horror and the Supernatural (anth 1981; with 1 story cut, vt Great Tales of Horror & the Supernatural 1985; text restored, vt Classic Tales of Horror and the Supernatural 1991; again cut, vt The Giant Book of Horror Stories 1991) with Malzberg and Greenberg; Specter!: A Chrestomathy of "Spookery" (anth 1982); and Witches' Brew: Horror and Supernatural Stories by Women (anth 1984) with Muller. [JC]See also: ESP. PROPHECY Film (1979). Paramount. Dir John FRANKENHEIMER, starring Talia Shire, Robert Foxworth, Armand Assante, Richard Dysart. Screenplay David Seltzer. 102 mins. Colour.A mercuric fungicide used by a Maine pulp-mill has mutagenic effects, bringing Minimata disease and miscarriages to the local Native Americans and creating gigantism among the area's wildlife, notably a MUTANT bear-creature responsible for many human deaths. All this is discovered by a crusading doctor and his pregnant wife. A surprisingly poor film from Frankenheimer - muddy photography, risible monster, eco-cliche script, wooden performances, stumbling action sequences - P is a rather crass example of the many revenge-of-Nature films ( MONSTER MOVIES) made from the mid-1970s to cash in on the increase in the community of legitimate concern for ECOLOGY. [PN] PROSPERO AND CALIBAN Frederick ROLFE. PROTO SCIENCE FICTION Meaningful use of the term "proto science fiction" obviously depends on one's DEFINITION of the term "science fiction"; indeed, the quest for sf's literary ancestry and "origins" is as much a dimension of the problem of definition as a backward extrapolation of the HISTORY OF SF. If by sf we mean labelled or GENRE SF, everything published before 1926 would become proto sf; but Hugo GERNSBACK clearly believed that he was merely attaching a name to a genre which already existed-he considered H.G. WELLS, Jules VERNE and Edgar Allan POE to be "scientifiction" writers, and reviewers of the 1890s seeking to characterize the kind of work which Wells was doing had already identified a genre of SCIENTIFIC ROMANCE, which included Verne, his UK imitators, and such writers as George GRIFFITH. Brian W. ALDISS argues in Billion Year Spree (1973; exp vt Trillion Year Spree 1986 with David WINGROVE) that one can trace a coherent literary tradition of sf to its point of origin in Mary SHELLEY's Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus (1818; rev 1831) ( GOTHIC SF). Darko SUVIN's study of Victorian Science Fiction in the UK (1983), on the other hand, states that "if ever there was in the history of a literary genre one day when it can be said to have begun, it is May Day 1871 for UK sf", that being the day on which Lord LYTTON's The Coming Race and the magazine version of George CHESNEY's The Battle of Dorking appeared, and on which Samuel BUTLER handed in the manuscript of Erewhon (1872). Other writers, including Peter NICHOLLS, have argued that sf is merely a continuation, without any true hiatus, of a much more ancient tradition of imaginative fiction whose origins are lost in the mythical mists and folkloric fogs of oral tradition. If this were accepted there would be no proto sf at all, and sf's history would begin with, say, HOMER's Odyssey and continue with LUCIAN's True History.It seems reasonable to argue that we cannot sensibly define something called "science fiction" until we can characterize both "science" and "fiction" with meanings close to those held by the words today. It was largely due to the rise of the novel - which made a formal attempt to counterfeit real experience - that it became appropriate to draw a basic distinction between the types of discourse used for nonfictional commentary and the types used for "fiction". The standardized nonfictional forms of today - the essay, the treatise and the scientific paper - were still in the early stages of their evolution in the late 18th century. Logically, therefore, it seems inappropriate to describe as "science fiction" anything published in the early 18th century or before. Indeed, so intimately connected is our sense of the word "fiction" with the growth of the novel that it would seem most sensible to begin our reckoning of what might be labelled "science fiction" with the first speculative work which is both a novel and manifests a clear awareness of what is and is not "science" in the modern sense of the word. Willem BILDERDIJK's A Short Account of a Remarkable Aerial Voyage and Discovery of a New Planet (1813; trans 1987) and Frankenstein both fit this definition well enough, although sceptics might argue that the supposed tradition which extends from them is very tenuous, and that no obvious precursor of Vernian and Wellsian scientific romance appeared before Chrysostom TRUEMAN's History of a Voyage to the Moon (1864).There are, of course, pre-19th-century works which, with the aid of hindsight, we can now unequivocally locate within the literature of the scientific imagination, notably Francis BACON's New Atlantis (1627; 1629), Johannes KEPLER's Somnium (1634) and Gabriel DANIEL's Voyage to the World of Cartesius (1692). These would have been considered by their authors to be works of philosophy, although they are cast in a form (the imaginary voyage) which we now consider to be a species of fiction. Some SATIRES also referred to contemporary scientific endeavours, most notably the third book of Jonathan SWIFT's Gulliver's Travels (1726), which also co-opts some of the techniques of formal realism associated with early novels; but such works usually extrapolate scientific ideas only to deride their follies. The quasisatirical contes philosophiques of VOLTAIRE include Micromegas (1750), which might also be considered an apt point of origin for sf if one were to embrace the common theory that it is the short story rather than the novel which is sf's natural form. On balance, however, it seems more sensible to consider all these as significant works of proto sf. The question as to which other works may be identified likewise, and the extent to which they might be considered important in defining the literary influences and patterns of literary expectation which have contributed to the shaping of sf, is a difficult one - and possible a sterile one, since we could argue that literary influences have contributed little to the effective shaping of GENRE SF. Other influences - historical and social-have certainly been important, and very probably more important, but the influence on sf of earlier traditions in fantastic literature should not be minimized: much sf, even the roughest-hewn PULP-MAGAZINE sf, has been written with much earlier literary models in mind.The species of proto sf which has exerted most influence on sf and on attitudes towards it is undoubtedly the imaginary voyage ( FANTASTIC VOYAGES). Those generally identified as being the closest kin to modern sf are the lunar voyages whose history is chronicled in Marjorie Hope NICOLSON's excellent study Voyages to the Moon (1948). Many attempts have been made to incorporate the history of sf into this tradition, including Patrick MOORE's Science and Fiction (1957), Roger Lancelyn GREEN's Into Other Worlds (1957) and Russell Freedman's 2000 Years of Space Travel (1963). This view makes Francis GODWIN's The Man in the Moone (1638), CYRANO DE BERGERAC's Other Worlds (1657-62) and other interplanetary satires the key works of proto sf, although the methods of travel employed are calculatedly absurd. The cynical incredulity of many such stories, however, commends them to the sceptical scientific worldview, and we must remember that scientific fidelity in speculation is only one of the characteristic demands made of modern sf ( DEFINITIONS). Sheer invention - the bolder the better - has always played an important part in sf, and to a large extent the effectiveness of sf derives from the pretence to scientific fidelity which asks that wild flights of the imagination be considered as if they were serious hypotheses. On this basis we can find a close kinship between sf and the traveller's tale, which attempts to make interesting fantasies palatable by reference to exotic distant lands; Lucian's True History is important as a sceptical reminder of the tendency of such tales to exaggerate wildly. Understandable difficulties arise with those travellers' tales whose apparatus is concerned with the religious imagination rather than with secular fabulation: Emanuel SWEDENBORG's cosmic visions - which include some interesting descriptions of LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS - are not frequently cited as examples of proto sf, although Larry NIVEN and others have argued that the cosmological speculations in DANTE ALIGHIERI's Divine Comedy entitle it to be considered a highly significant work in the proto-genre. It should perhaps be remembered that the distinction between scientific thought and religious thought, like the distinction between fiction and nonfiction, has not always been nearly as clearcut as it seems today; moreover, the classics of the religious imagination were frequently echoed in sf, not always with the intention of subverting their messages. Although such works as Milton's Paradise Lost (1667; rev 1674) and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1678; exp 1684) can hardly be said to take much account of scientific knowledge, they have established literary archetypes of considerable importance, and analogies may be drawn between the kinds of fantastic environment which they establish and those used in many sf stories.It is worth noting that the literary tradition of UTOPIAS - which are also usually cast as imaginary voyages - is not as intimately connected with sf as it might seem. Utopian speculation is echoed in contemporary sf primarily because sf writers have adopted a stereotyped "utopian scenario" as one of the standard environments for futuristic adventure; there is less actual utopian philosophy in modern sf than one might expect. Contrastingly, there is far more transplanted MYTHOLOGY than any widely accepted definition could lead us to expect. If any one imaginary voyage has had a far more than appropriate share of influence on the genre it is Homer's Odyssey, of which there are at least 5 straightforward sf transmogrifications. Of course, the Odyssey is not only an imaginary voyage: it also incorporates two literary forms which more or less died out in the later historical periods under consideration here: the hero-myth and what was then its corollary, the MONSTER story. Both forms have been revived within sf, and there are clear structural and ideative links between many sf stories and legendary constructions of these kinds. There are sf stories explicitly based on the story of the Argonauts, the labours of Hercules and such early literary exercises as Beowulf, although sf's HEROES are characteristically conceived in a rather different way from those of the ancient hero myths.There still remain for consideration the other prose-forms current in the 17th and 18th centuries whose status as "fiction" or "nonfiction" is not so easy to establish with hindsight: the dialogue, the meditation and the history. The dramatic dialogue was quite popular as a medium for imaginative literature in 19th-century France, its most flamboyant product being Edgar Quinet's Ahasverus (1833); Poe's "Conversation of Eiros and Charmion" (1838) is a notable work of early sf cast in this form. Dialogue is now subsumed within ordinary narrative form, but there are numerous notable sf stories which are basically contes philosophiques cast as dialogues; genre sf, despite the priority which the pulps put on action-adventure, has been reasonably hospitable to such exercises. Even though we now classify them as nonfiction, we should be prepared to concede an important role in the history of proto sf to the basic strategy employed in PLATO's dialogues and later works in the same vein by Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) and David Hume (1711-1776). Socratic debate and interrogation are extensively used in sf, not merely as a means of exposition but also as a way of developing ideas and exploring their implications; any genre which attempts to develop speculations logically and rigorously must, obviously, depend to a considerable degree on the Socratic method of examining ideas.The meditation seems much less important to the form and development of sf, but the history is a different matter. The construction of a history, which necessitates connecting events into a coherent narrative, requires both a creative and an orderly imagination (thus combining the essential requirements of the imaginary voyage and the dialogue). Imaginary histories must be considered alongside imaginary voyages as works which belong to the literary tradition of which modern sf is one product. Many of the early works which attempted to get to grips with the future, described in the early pages of I.F. CLARKE's The Tale of the Future (3rd edn 1978), are cast as histories. Mention must also be made in this context of the pioneering exercises in alternative history ( ALTERNATE WORLDS) described in the essay "Of a History of Events which Have not Happened" (c1800) by Isaac d'Israeli (1766-1848).Imaginary voyages and imaginary histories may be formulated in POETRY as well as in prose - several of the works referred to above are verse epics rather than prose discourses - and a case might obviously be made for including many poems and plays in the literature of the scientific imagination; but the most important links we can draw between classical literature and sf pertain to the settings in which the stories take place and the apparatus deployed there. With the exception of epic poetry, neither poetry nor drama is strong in this sense. This is not to say that sf cannot be adapted to poetry or to the THEATRE (there are some classic sf plays), but the importance of poetry and drama to any sf tradition is restricted, and it is difficult to argue convincingly that Shelley's Prometheus Unbound (1820) and Shakespeare's The Tempest (1623) are significant works of proto sf.The attempt to identify a coherent tradition of proto sf is vain, in more than one sense of that word. Without a doubt, individual works of classical literature can be shown to be ancestral in certain respects to occasional themes of sf, but we devalue the word "tradition" if we use it to describe a series of isolated juxtapositions. To say that an assembly of illustrious literary works constitutes such a tradition is a form of self-congratulation on the part of the sf writer/reader/critic akin to that of a prostitute who claims to be operating in the tradition of Cleopatra and Madame de Pompadour, even though in an obvious respect she is correct. Sf is a form of literature and can lay claim to all of literary history as its background if its adherents so wish, but this does not mean that we can turn the historical sequence on its head and claim that sf is the logical culmination of the "great tradition of proto sf", or the sole beneficiary of its heritage. Nevertheless, going back into literary history with the intention (however eccentric it may be) of classifying literary works according to their various similarities with modern sf is not a complete waste of time. It may serve as a reminder that sf, like prostitutes, is not a mere accident of circumstance, and that it is not - either in the literal or in the commonplace sense of the word - inconsequential. [BS] PROUMEN, HENRI-JACQUES [r] BENELUX. PRUYN, LEONARD (1898-1973) US writer who began publishing sf with "In Time of Sorrow" in Authentic in 1954 and continued with an sf novel, World without Women (1960) with Day KEENE, about the violent consequences to the world of the loss of its women ( WOMEN AS PORTRAYED IN SCIENCE FICTION). [JC] PRYOR, VANESSA Chelsea Quinn YARBRO. PSEUDOMAN, AKKAD Pseudonym of US writer Edwin Fitch Northrup (1886-1940), whose sf novel Zero to Eighty (1937) tells woodenly of life during the entire 20th century, culminating in technical and pictorial accounts of the building of a gun-launched SPACESHIP and of its trip to the Moon. [JC] PSEUDONYMS Reasons for using pseudonyms are very various, but almost always involve concealment. So obvious is this that it might seem to go without saying; but in fact many reference books altogether disregard the factor of concealment in their use of the term, and often designate as pseudonyms variations upon real names made to heighten impact (C.J. Cherry, for instance, writes as C.J. CHERRYH), or to shorten or simplify a spelling (Francis A. Jaworski writes as Frank JAVOR), or to select part of a full or married name for public use (Piers Anthony Jacob writes as Piers ANTHONY, and Kate Wilhelm Knight writes under her maiden name, Kate WILHELM). For this encyclopedia we have chosen to designate as "working names" all such variations; and we restrict the term "pseudonym" to names which, whether or not the author's legal name is known, have no clear lexical relationship to that name (we do not treat acronyms or mirror spellings as conveying a clear lexical relationship). Thus Christopher ANVIL is a pseudonym for Harry Crosby, as are Bron Fane (a partial acronym) and Trebor Thorpe (the given name here being a mirror spelling) for Robert Lionel FANTHORPE, and Frederick R. Ewing for Theodore STURGEON. In almost all cases the main entry for individuals covered in this volume, whether authors, editors, illustrators, critics or film-makers, appears under the name by which they are best known, whether that be the legal name (Isaac ASIMOV), the working name (Algis BUDRYS) or the pseudonym (James TIPTREE Jr).All the author's names that have been used for an sf book - real, working or pseudonymous - appear in this encyclopedia, either as the headword for an entry or as a cross-reference headword directing the reader to the entry under which they are treated. Many (but not all) names that have been used only for sf non-book stories are likewise cross-referred, but with the additional notation [s]. Cross-reference entries which designate real figures (who may be collaborators, etc., and who on occasion may themselves be pseudonymous) are identified with the notation [r].Collaborative pseudonyms, floating pseudonyms and house names are given entries. A collaborative-pseudonym entry will usually give details of books written together under that name by the authors concerned. A floating-pseudonym entry covers a name which is, in a sense, freely available for anyone who cares to use it. (Ivar JORGENSEN is an example of a floating pseudonym.) A house name - which is a kind of floating pseudonym - is an imaginary name invented by a publishing company, and such were very frequently used in magazines to conceal the fact that an author had more than one story in a given issue; e.g., had Robert SILVERBERG sold 2 stories to a particular issue of a ZIFF-DAVIS magazine (e.g., AMAZING STORIES), one of the stories might be published under a Ziff-Davis house name such as Alexander BLADE or E.K. JARVIS - usually, though not necessarily, the story of which he had less reason to be proud. House names might also be used in a case where an author did not want it known that he was selling stories to a certain magazine; and (especially in the UK 1950-65) house names were very frequently used by mass-production houses like CURTIS WARREN or BADGER BOOKS to conceal the fact that a small team of writers was producing huge numbers of books in whatever genre the firm required.Pseudonyms - as we said - are forms of concealment. We might add the observation that, in the sf world, pseudonyms were, for many years, very common. The reasons for their popularity were various and (generally) obvious. They have always flourished in PULP-MAGAZINE environments, where writers, being paid pittances for most of the early decades of GENRE SF, were forced to write voluminously, and often needed to use several names during their years of high production before burn-out; the low prestige of sf also undoubtedly inspired their use; and (perhaps mysteriously) many sf writers have clearly enjoyed the creation and maintenance of pseudonymous identities. The most recent guide to sf pseudonyms - Roger ROBINSON's Who's Hugh? (1987) - contains about 3000 ascriptions, and is already seriously out of date, having been compiled too early to take properly into account the remarkable 1980s revival in the use of every kind of pseudonym, usually by authors of TIES and adventure series. The flood of concealment is, once again, rising. [JC/PN] PSEUDO-SCIENCE Pseudo-sciences are here defined as belief systems which, though adopting a scientific or quasiscientific terminology, are generally regarded as erroneous or unproven by the orthodox scientific community; frequently they not merely disagree with, or are improbable adjuncts to, accepted science but violate its fundamental tenets. They are not to be confused with the IMAGINARY SCIENCES, which are literary conventions, although the borderline can be blurred, especially with pseudo-technologies such as ANTIGRAVITY devices.The adherents of many of the pseudo-sciences often display an almost religious fervour - indeed, some pseudo-scientific schools, notably SCIENTOLOGY (which is registered as a Church), use terminology that is consciously more religious than scientific. A further aspect is that creators of and believers in pseudo-scientific cults often interpret the scientific establishment's indifference or contempt in terms of jealousy or even as a self-interested conspiracy designed to conceal the Truth. The type-example of this occurs in ufology ( UFOS), where scientists, politicians, the military, the CIA (especially) and even the presumed ALIEN crews have been frequently accused of mounting cover-ups of global proportions. (John A. Keel has used the lack of good evidence of alien visitors as an indication that such alien visitors do indeed exist: who else would be able to mount such an effective cover-up?) Martin GARDNER has documented such PARANOIAS in his classic study of pseudo-scientific cults, In the Name of Science (1952; rev vt Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science 1957), and the cultic aspect of pseudo-scientific belief systems is noted even in the titles of two further surveys of the field: Cults of Unreason (1973) by Dr Christopher Evans, which is moderately sympathetic, and The New Apocrypha (1973) by John T. SLADEK, which is very comprehensive and occasionally strident. Other works of note include: The Natural History of Nonsense (1947) by Bergen Evans, which concentrates on biological/zoological fallacies; Can You Speak Venusian?: A Guide to the Independent Thinkers (1972; rev 1976), by Patrick MOORE, which is an idiosyncratic personal survey; Science: Good, Bad and Bogus (coll 1981) by Gardner; Science and the Paranormal (anth 1981) ed G. Abell and B. Singer; Facts and Fallacies: A Book of Definitive Mistakes and Misguided Predictions (1981) by Chris MORGAN and David LANGFORD; A Directory of Discarded Ideas (1981) by John Grant (Paul BARNETT); and Pseudoscience and the Paranormal: A Critical Examination of the Evidence (1987) by T. Hines. A Dictionary of Common Fallacies (1978; rev and exp in 2 vols 1980) by Philip Ward contains a great deal of scattered information on the pseudo-sciences. The best journal on the topic is probably The Skeptical Inquirer, published from Buffalo, New York, by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.Few people could read any of these books without finding one or other of their own pet beliefs being dismissed as nonsense; Gardner, for example, has many harsh words about osteopathy, and Sladek is not gentle with Teilhard de Chardin's theories of EVOLUTION or Marshall McLuhan's ideas about the SOCIOLOGY of the MEDIA LANDSCAPE; Grant, contrariwise, has been attacked for declining to dismiss some pseudo-sciences as necessarily absurd rather than just exceptionally unlikely. Such reactions point up the difficulty of defining the topic with any precision, and also indicate that the authors of these books may have prejudices of their own.There has always been a close and rather embarrassing link between the pseudo-sciences and sf. Some commentators have suggested that, at its lowest level, sf appeals to a childishness in readers, an unwillingness to get to grips with the real world-qualities which could equally be ascribed to devotees of various of the pseudo-sciences. When Gardner wrote in the mid-1950s that "the average fan may very well be a chap in his teens, with a smattering of scientific knowledge culled mostly from science fiction, enormously gullible, with a strong bent towards occultism, no understanding of scientific method, and a basic insecurity for which he compensates by fantasies of scientific power" he was describing not pseudo-science believers but sf fans; and in part he had a point, given that his context was a discussion of John W. CAMPBELL Jr's editorials puffing PSIONICS. Other aspects of mid-1950s magazine sf, notably its tales of PARANOIA, its SUPERMAN fantasies and its obsession with ESP, were not inconsistent with Gardner's caricature.Pseudo-scientific ideas have a rather different spectrum in sf than outside it. For example, pseudo-medicine is probably the richest (pun intended) area of pseudo-science, being the region that attracts the most frauds as opposed to sincere theoreticians, yet pseudo-medicine is rarely encountered in sf. An early example is A.E. VAN VOGT's flirtation in Siege of the Unseen (1946 ASF as "The Chronicler"; 1959) with the notorious eye exercises devised by William Bates (d1931). Since about the mid-1970s, when ideas of Mind/Body/Spirit became fashionable, the ability of characters to heal themselves has, in sf, subtly shifted out of the more general category of PSI POWERS to become regarded as a reasonable consequence of a general enhancement of the mind; such an attitude is found in David ZINDELL's Neverness (1988), among very many others. Trepanation - drilling a hole through the skull in the pineal region in order to improve general and particularly intellectual health, promoted from 1965 by the Dutch theoretician Bart Huges - makes a brief appearance in David CRONENBERG's film SCANNERS (1981). But such examples are trivial in comparison with the huge diversity of pseudo-medical ideas found outside fiction. One sf idea that has affected pseudo-medicine was LYTTON's vril, described in The Coming Race (1871); in the 1920s the US businessman Robert Nelson marketed his cure-all, Vrilium, which - unlike another product named for vril, Bovril - was fortunately not recommended for oral consumption: it proved to be rat poison. At a more fundamental level, one might make a case that sf has contributed more to the pseudo-sciences than they have contributed to sf.Psychiatry - more specifically psychoanalysis - has provided sf and fantasy authors with better pickings. Some critics would dismiss the theories of Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) as largely if not entirely pseudo-scientific; and the same can be said with greater assuredness of some of the later ideas of Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957), which drew also upon sciencefictional notions. Reich came to believe that he was a focus of a SPACE-OPERA-style cosmic battle between friendly and hostile UFOs, powered by the "orgone drive". He assisted the Forces of Good and defended himself against the Forces of Evil using one of his own inventions, the cloudbuster, which dispersed "destructive orgone energy". Of psychological interest was the Christos Experiment carried out by occasional sf writer G.M. GLASKIN and others in the 1970s, which suggested that the human mind, in something akin to a dream state, was capable of exploring past and future incarnations ( REINCARNATION). Sf has also produced its own psychiatric ideas, notably those associated with DIANETICS and Scientology. Perhaps the most enthusiastic exploiter of such notions in genre sf has been A.E. van Vogt, who played a prominent role in the early days of dianetics and was also much influenced by the GENERAL SEMANTICS philosophy of Count Alfred KORZYBSKI. In more recent years Colin WILSON, who admires van Vogt greatly, has based a considerable amount of his fiction on unorthodox psychological hypotheses; the most interesting example may be his novella "Timeslip" (1979), which mixes the (now rather more reputable) theory of the divided brain with notions of the paranormal and the possibility of humanity developing radically new modes of thinking - a CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH in more than one sense of that term.Perhaps the greatest single source of pseudo-scientific ideas in genre sf has been the work produced by Charles FORT in the 1920s and 1930s. Fort himself was not a pseudo-scientist per se - he was a chronicler of strange events rather than a theoretician - but he had a habit of scattering wild theories through his writings in the form of humorous asides. These have been rich ground for sf writers in search of story-ideas, but some seem to have taken them with a greater seriousness. The two areas of his theorizing that have most influenced sf are ESP/ PSI POWERS and the notion that we are being secretly observed, and perhaps controlled, by mysterious intelligences. The latter hypothesis is reflected in many theories at the wilder end of ufology, in the sort of PARANOIA demonstrated in the lurid stories of Richard SHAVER, in the lasting popularity of H.P. LOVECRAFT's Cthulhu Mythos - extensively imitated and developed by others - and, in a roundabout way, in the idea that we have been visited many times in the past by ALIENS, who have directed the evolution of our technology (as in the works of Erich VON DANIKEN; sf stories reflecting this last view are discussed also in the entries on ADAM AND EVE and ORIGIN OF MAN). It is worth noting here that the notion of some archaic and long-lost alien race having "seeded" all the technologically developed planets of the Galaxy has become something of a CLICHE in SPACE OPERA; on occasion, where the setting is the very FAR FUTURE, humanity itself - or its AI emissaries - has been the "seeding" race. The cliche is interestingly deployed in, for example, John BRUNNER's A Maze of Stars (1991).One of the most influential pseudo-scientists of the latter half of this century has been Immanuel VELIKOVSKY. He first put forward his theories in Worlds in Collision (1950), a book that came to prominence largely thanks to the misguided overreaction to it of orthodox scientists. In his first few books Velikovsky examined countless legends of catastrophe from the Bible and MYTHOLOGY, and claimed these were explicable in terms of profound cosmic disturbances. (In several books in the 1960s W. Raymond Drake repeated the exercise, this time coming to the "inescapable" conclusion that the disasters could be explained only in terms of warring alien races - the "Gods".) Most notable was Velikovsky's idea that the planet VENUS is recent, having been spat out of Jupiter during biblical times and swooping repeatedly near to the Earth before settling in its current orbit; these close encounters naturally caused great upheavals on Earth. In the early 1980s there was an outburst of what can be termed "neo-Velikovskianism", typified by Peter Warlow's The Reversing Earth (1982); such revisions of the core theories, being considerably more scientifically literate than the original, proved harder to refute and, because this time few scientists bothered to make the public attempt to do so, were perhaps more influential on the scientifically ignorant intelligentsia. A number of sf novels have been directly affected by the original ideas of Velikovsky (see his entry for examples) or the later revisions; the most notable is The HAB Theory (1976) by Allan W. ECKERT. A good parody of Velikovskianism is Judgement of Jupiter (1980) by John T. SLADEK writing as Richard A. Tilms.A less well known catastrophe theory was produced in 1886 by the US Quaker scientist Isaac Newton Vail. This was that all planets go through a phase or phases of having rings of ice like those currently observable around the GAS GIANTS. Natural instabilities in Earth's primordial rings caused them eventually to crash down towards the surface, creating a hugely thick cloud canopy in the upper atmosphere. When this canopy in turn collapsed, there was of course the Flood. A sciencefictional exploration of this is Piers ANTHONY's post- HOLOCAUST novel Rings of Ice (1974). Another historically important theory of catastrophe was the World (or Cosmic) Ice Theory of Hans Horbiger, devoutly espoused by the Nazis in the years leading up to WWII; according to Nazi folklore, various "Jew scientists" like Albert Einstein fled Germany merely because they could not face the public demolition of their life's work in the light of Horbiger's discovered Truth. The theory seems to have been regarded by even the most sensationalist of pulp writers as too silly to be exploitable, but as late as 1953 the Horbiger Institute was using it to "prove" that the MOON's surface was covered in a deep layer of solid ice.It is not only in GENRE SF that we find pseudo-scientific theories. Many eccentricities relating to Spiritualism and astral bodies ( ESCHATOLOGY), to IMMORTALITY and REINCARNATION were commonplace in late-19th-century sf, and are still occasionally found today. Theories concerning race ( POLITICS), usually implying Black or Native American inferiority, were depressingly common in LOST-WORLD stories and elsewhere (but at least theories were called on to support such claims of racial inferiority: the inferiority of WOMEN was usually just taken for granted), as were ideas about the lost continents ATLANTIS, Lemuria and Mu, and the hidden kingdoms inside the HOLLOW EARTH. For some decades after the Darwinian controversy, alternative theories of EVOLUTION were popular in sf, and the Lamarckian variant (founded on the notion that characteristics acquired during an individual's lifetime may be passed on to its offspring) proved especially fruitful for early writers; even today, Lamarckian ideas turn up more frequently than most sf writers would care to admit, as evolutionary ideas are misapplied to fictional ALIEN species - although it might be claimed that evolutionary mechanisms may be different in distinct biologies. (Very common, of course, is the perfectly justifiable application of Lamarckian assumptions to the evolution of machine INTELLIGENCE.) Pseudo-scientific theories of DEVOLUTION and racial degeneracy appear in much early sf, including pulp sf at least up to the 1930s, John TAINE being a frequent culprit. Other SOFT SCIENCES have produced their own rashes of pseudo-scientific ideas, although the defining line between science and pseudo-science can in these areas be especially hard to draw, since the empirical testing of, say, a sociological hypothesis may require decades of patient observation. This is particularly true of FUTUROLOGY, which is often decried as being a pseudo-science in toto.None of the predictive pseudo-sciences have been of much importance in sf, although they are often enough derided in stories whose own purportedly scientific underpinning is at least as dubious: we scorn numerology to pass the time before making a HYPERSPACE jump. Astrology (further discussed under ASTRONOMY) plays a part in several books, examples being MACROSCOPE (1969) by Piers Anthony and The Astrologer (1972) by John CAMERON. Numerology is rare; its wilder eccentricities are parodied in Martin Gardner's The Numerology of Dr Matrix (coll 197?; vt The Incredible Dr Matrix1976; exp vt The Magic Numbers of Dr Matrix 1985). An example of a numerology story is "Six Cubed Plus One" by John Rankine (Douglas R. MASON). From about the mid-1980s, though, the Tarot has become popular in stories on the borderline of sf and fantasy; examples are Mary GENTLE's "The Tarot Dice" (in Scholars and Soldiers [coll 1989]), Marsha Norman's interesting mainstream novel The Fortune Teller (1988), and the original anthology Tarot Tales (anth 1989) ed Rachel POLLACK and Caitlin Matthews.The above is not to imply that some of the theories discussed here (especially those relating to ESP and psi powers) have not had their supporters among the reputable scientific ranks. For example, the scientific essayist (and novelist) Arthur KOESTLER gave support to Jung's idea of synchronicity (that there are acausal principles affecting events, as well as cause-and-effect) in The Roots of Coincidence (1972) and made a case for Lamarckism in The Case of the Midwife Toad (1971), where he also dealt with seriality, a hypothesis, closely akin to synchronicity, developed by the Austrian biologist Paul Kammerer (1880-1926). The mathematician John Taylor for some years gave credence to the supposed fork-bending abilities of Uri Geller (1946- ), although later he recanted, in Science and the Supernatural (1980). J. Allen Hynek, a reputable space scientist, contributed considerably to ufology. The psychologist H.J. Eysenck gave rather qualified support to the psi powers, as in Explaining the Unexplained: Mysteries of the Paranormal (1982) with Carl Sargent. The neurologist Kit PEDLER was another to take the psi powers seriously, as in Mind Over Matter: A Scientist's View of the Paranormal (1981), and many physicists engaged in quantum mechanics today are open-minded about areas of parapsychology that were scientifically TABOO a couple of decades ago. Yet the sometimes aggressively illogical, proudly irresponsible outpourings of pseudo-science have on occasion played a considerable part in establishing such taboos. For example, it was possible in 1966 for Carl SAGAN to speculate joyously about the possibility that alien races might indeed have come among us in the remote past, as he did in Intelligent Life in the Universe (1966) with I.S. Shklovskii, without in any sense damaging his own scientific credibility; 10 years later, post-von Daniken, it would have been a brave scientist who would have done the same. Similarly, investigations in the late 1960s and 1970s by the French statistician Michel Gauquelin of possible correlations between planetary positions at individuals' births and their subsequent personalities brought down on him considerable abuse from the scientific establishment - not because of his research per se (interesting but inconclusive) but because he was seen to be working in the taboo area of astrology.The heyday of pseudo-science fiction was arguably the 1950s. Since the 1960s sf writers within the genre, less so those outside it, have in general been more responsible in their use of the dramatic possibilities of the pseudo-sciences, at least within HARD SF, which purports to be based in the scientifically plausible. On occasion their rejections of perceived pseudo-science have been overenthusiastic; for example, in his novel Quatermass (1979), Nigel KNEALE derides the (today perfectly respectable) notion that megalithic monuments might be prehistoric astronomical observatories on the grounds that, as computers were required to discover all their astronomical alignments, our ancestors would have required computers in order to design them - an argument exactly analogous to the proof that bees can't fly.Many sf writers, including Isaac ASIMOV and John Brunner, have actively campaigned against the mindless acceptance of pseudo-scientific propaganda and its greedy exploitation by book publishers. Brunner, for example, wrote a scathing article on the latter subject, "Scientific Thought in Fiction and in Fact", for Science Fiction at Large (anth 1976; vt Explorations of the Marvellous) ed Peter NICHOLLS, presenting the view that the publishing boom (now somewhat abated) in books on the pseudo-sciences was leading to a great deal of cynical and fraudulent production of fictions masquerading as fact; sf writers at least maintain their fictions as fictions.Some sf writers have used the tool of parody to counter the influence of the pseudo-scientists: Sladek has produced not only the Velikovsky parody mentioned above but also Arachne Rising: The Thirteenth Sign of the Zodiac (1977) and The Cosmic Factor (1978), both as by James Vogh; Langford is responsible for An Account of a Meeting with Denizens of Another World, 1871 (1979) as if with his wife's (genuine) ancestor William Robert Loosley; and Grant for Sex Secrets of Ancient Atlantis (1985). Persistent rumour has, despite his strenuous denials, claimed Patrick Moore as author of Flying Saucer from Mars (1955) by "Cedric Allingham".During the late 1980s there began a disturbing tendency for pseudo-scientists (examples include the Church of Scientology, Uri Geller, US ufologist Stanton Friedman [1934- ] and Whitley STRIEBER) to respond to criticism with litigation. Sf writers and readers, angered by the threat to freedom of opinion, have been prominent among those supporting the victims of such actions. To extend Brunner's point: the greatest triumph of pseudo-science will come if it is permitted to impose the acceptance of its fictions-or, at best, its hypotheses - as fact. [PN/JGr] PSIONICS A common item of sf TERMINOLOGY, referring to the study and use of PSI POWERS, under which head it is discussed. [PN]See also: PSEUDO-SCIENCE. PSI POWERS A name given to the full spectrum of mental powers studied by the PSEUDO-SCIENCE of parapsychology, and a common item of sf TERMINOLOGY. In his book From Anecdote to Experiment in Psychical Research (1972), Robert Thouless claims that he and Dr B.P. Wiesner invented the term, prior to its use in sf circles, as being less liable to suggest a pre-existing theory than the term "Extra Sensory Perception" (or ESP). The term was adopted into sf during the "psi boom" which John W. CAMPBELL Jr promoted in ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION during the early 1950s. Campbell also popularized in the mid-1950s the related term "psionics", which he once defined as "psychic electronics"; one of its earliest uses was in Murray LEINSTER's "The Psionic Mousetrap" (1955). Although many notable psi stories deal with the entire spectrum of such powers, telepathy, clairvoyance and precognition - the "perceptual" paranormal powers - are in this encyclopedia covered in the section on ESP (where many stories featuring the full range of psi powers are also cited). The principal psi powers which remain for specific consideration here are: psychokinesis or telekinesis (moving objects by the power of the mind); teleportation (moving oneself likewise, although the term is sometimes extended to cover technologies of MATTER TRANSMISSION); pyrolysis (psychic fire-raising); and the ability to take control of the minds of others (which, for some unknown reason, has never been dressed up with a fancy jargon term - although it is, of course, often thought to be possible by means of hypnosis or mesmerism).Campbell's psi-boom was inspired by ideas borrowed from J.B. Rhine (1895-1980) and Charles FORT to the effect that many individuals with latent psi powers were already among us; Campbell took them as representing the "next step" in human EVOLUTION. His own "Forgetfulness" (1937 ASF as by Don A. Stuart) offers a significant early image of a human race which has outgrown its dependence on TECHNOLOGY because the mind can do everything that once required tools. This idea is widely featured in the works of A.E. VAN VOGT and Theodore STURGEON, and received a new lease of life after 1945 when the advent of the Bomb inspired many stories in which the world before or after the HOLOCAUST might be redeemed by psi-powered MUTANTS, as in Poul ANDERSON's Twilight World (1947-61 ASF; fixup 1961), John WYNDHAM's Re-Birth (1955 US; vt The Chrysalids UK) and Phyllis GOTLIEB's Sunburst (1964). Later versions of the theme can be found in David PALMER's Emergence (1984) and the more ambivalent Taji's Syndrome (1988) by Chelsea Quinn YARBRO.All the psi powers, of course, used to be in the repertoire of powerful magicians ( MAGIC), and most are featured in occult romances. Mind control (possession) has always been a popular theme in horror stories, and there is a considerable grey area between sf and supernatural fiction of this kind. Notable works featuring such powers include Trilby (1894) by George DU MAURIER, The Parasite (1895) by Arthur Conan DOYLE, Congratulate the Devil (1939) by Andrew MARVELL, "But without Horns" (1940) by Norvell W. PAGE, The Midwich Cuckoos (1957; vt Village of the Damned US) by John Wyndham and Children of the Thunder (1989) by John BRUNNER. Considered historically, teleportation may be seen as an extrapolation of levitation, which is usually given rather ironic treatment in modern literary works, as in Neil BELL's "The Facts About Benjamin Crede" (1935), Michael HARRISON's Higher Things (1945) and John SHIRLEY's Three-Ring Psychus (1980). In logical terms, however, teleportation may be considered simply as a special case of telekinesis, and levitation therefore crops up in a lot of stories which deal with a broader range of telekinetic powers, including James H. SCHMITZ's The Witches of Karres (1966), Tom REAMY's Blind Voices (1978) and Timothy ZAHN's A Coming of Age (1985). In the psi-boom years teleportation featured most prominently in Alfred BESTER's Tiger! Tiger! (1956 UK; rev vt The Stars My Destination 1957 US), which shows NEAR-FUTURE society adapting to the development of "jaunting" (teleportation), and also in such works as Gordon R. DICKSON's Time to Teleport (1955 Science Fiction Stories as "Perfectly Adjusted"; 1960). Teleportation by alien creatures is a significant plot element in Anne MCCAFFREY's Pern series, and comes into sharper focus in Vernor VINGE's The Witling (1976) and Walter Jon WILLIAMS's Knight Moves (1985). A recent story in which human teleportation comes in for specific examination is Jumper (1992) by Steven Gould. Fire-raising rarely receives separate treatment in sf stories, a notable exception being Stephen KING's Firestarter (1980).In order to be dramatically effective, abilities like mind control and telekinesis usually have to be moderated in some way, unless the point of the story is sarcastically to demonstrate the appalling tyranny which would surely result from the human possession of godlike powers, as in Jerome BIXBY's classic "It's a Good Life" (1953), Frederik POHL's "Pythias" (1955) and Henry SLESAR's "A God Named Smith" (1957). On the other hand, the unthinkingly casual use of extravagant powers for trivial purposes is ironically featured in Henry KUTTNER's comedies about the hillbilly Hogbens. Humans made godlike by psi powers are given less cynical treatment in Frank HERBERT's "The Priests of Psi" (1959) and The God Makers (1972), and in several novels by Roger ZELAZNY. One might perhaps wish that L. Ron HUBBARD had retained the amiable cynicism he exhibited in his early psi story "The Tramp" (1938), but instead he went on to build SCIENTOLOGY around a mythology of human evolution towards psionic godhood. Several stories of gradually unfolding psi power reach climaxes which may be regarded as apotheoses - Arthur C. CLARKE's CHILDHOOD'S END (1953) is the most notable example; others are Keith LAUMER's The Infinite Cage (1972) and Oscar ROSSITER's Tetrasomy Two (1974). Carole Nelson DOUGLAS's Probe (1985) and Counterprobe (1988) offer a more moderate account of psi powers, not initially under conscious control, being gradually revealed.Despite the widespread publicity given to the phenomenon of "spoon-bending" in the 1970s there is no convincing evidence that real-world psychics can accomplish more than moderate conjurers by way of telekinesis. It is a little recognized fact that the evidence for ESP, seemingly a more plausible talent, is even worse. That stories of ESP far outnumber stories devoted to the other psi powers has far more to do with intrinsic narrative interest than with questions of likelihood. Some critics feel that, in spite of the elaborate pseudo-scientific jargon developed by believers in the "paranormal", stories of psi powers really belong to the realm of magical FANTASY rather than sf. The rapid growth of genre fantasy in the past two decades has, in fact, allowed many such stories to be appropriately relocated. [PN/BS] PSYCHEDELIC HUXLEY Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1932, and his vision of a future world was original, funny, and shocking.In the book, drugs were presented as an unqualified evil. Soma, the drug of choice, was used by the authorities to tranquilize humanity into euphoric complacency.But Huxley himself spent the last decade of his life exploring consciousness-altering drugs with a lot more sympathy. He experimented with mescaline in 1953 and tried LSD several times during the 1950s, writing about his experiences with great enthusiasm and, as he said," an unspeakable sense of gratitude for the privilege of being born into this universe."Huxley died on November 22, 1963, the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. A few hours before Huxley’s death, he requested LSD. As the doctor and nurses who were attending him were clustered around the television, Huxley passed away, under the influence. PSYCHOHISTORY A much-loved item of sf TERMINOLOGY, coined in Isaac ASIMOV's very popular Foundation (1942-50; fixups 1951-3) (and not to be confused with the term sometimes used by historians, which refers to the study of the relation of psychological motives to historical process). The attractive but purely IMAGINARY SCIENCE of psychohistory supposes that the behaviour of humans in the mass - and thus future HISTORY - can be predicted by purely statistical means, but ". . . a further necessary assumption is that the human conglomerate be itself unaware of psychohistoric analysis in order that its reactions be truly random". It is upon this condition that the meta-plot of the trilogy depends. [PN] PSYCHOLOGY The science of the mind is sufficiently different from the physical sciences for its discoveries and hypotheses to set very different problems and offer very different opportunities to the writer of speculative fiction. Psychology still carries a considerable burden of pseudo-scientific conjecture even if one sets aside its close and problematic relationship with parapsychology ( ESP; PSI POWERS). The absence of convenient models of the mind (whether based on physical analogy or purely mathematical) means that the mind remains much more mercurial and mysterious than the atom or the Universe, in spite of the fact that introspection appears to be a simple and safe source of data.A great deal of fiction which attempts to explore the mysteries of mind lies on the borderline between sf and MAINSTREAM fiction. Studies of both normal and abnormal psychology may be accommodated within the province of the traditional novel of character, even if their insights are derived from scientific constructs like psychoanalysis. There is a whole school of modern novelists, their work generally reckoned to be a long way removed from sf, whose self-defined task has been to capture the "stream of consciousness" - a psychological hypothesis we owe to the philosopher William James (1842-1910), not to his writer brother Henry. Studies of obsession, alienation and various forms of insanity are by no means uncommon in contemporary fiction, and even the most exaggerated - e.g., many studies of "dual personality" - seem perfectly acceptable as "realistic" novels. It is not until a notion of this kind is taken to bizarre extremes, as in Stanley G. WEINBAUM's dual-personality tale The Dark Other (1950), that the story becomes unmistakably sf. Even stories replete with the jargon of supposedly scientific psychoanalysis, like Thomas Bailey ALDRICH's The Queen of Sheba (1877) and S. Guy ENDORE's classic Freudian murder mystery Methinks the Lady (1945), are intrinsically mundane, although Endore's study of the psychological syndrome of lycanthropy, The Werewolf of Paris (1933), is normally considered a FANTASY. There is a certain irony in the fact that the subgenre of psychological speculative fiction which is most easily claimed for sf is the class of stories dealing with mesmerism and hypnosis - because these are sufficiently disreputable to be evidently fantastic! Thus a story like Edgar Allan POE's "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" (1845) invites classification as sf not so much because it mimics the form of a scientific report but because the mesmerised hero's immunity to decay is so obviously impossible. Stories of delusional neurosis or vivid hallucination which become very bizarre - e.g., Sir Ronald FRASER's The Flower Phantoms (1926) - are more conveniently classed as visionary fantasy than as sf, because of rather than in spite of the fact that their "impossible" events are entirely subjective, even though scientific theories like Freud's psychoanalysis may have been used to generate the substance of the fantasies.Early exercises in speculative psychology which uncontroversially belong to sf are those in which some invention, usually a MACHINE or a drug, is invoked as a literary device to exert specific control over the substance of the psyche (although it is arguable that all such devices are based on philosophical errors concerning the nature of mental phenomena). The origins of psychological sf thus lie in such stories as Edward BELLAMY's Dr Heidenhoff's Process (1880), about a technology of selective amnesia, Robert Louis STEVENSON's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), about a drug which separates the principle of evil from that of good (or the id from the superego, as the Freudian reader is bound to interpret it), Richard Slee and Cornelia Atwood PRATT's Dr Berkeley's Discovery (1899), about a method of "photographing" memories, Walter BESANT's "The Memory Cell" (1900), again dealing with selective amnesia, and Vincent HARPER's materialist polemic The Mortgage on the Brain (1905), about an electrical method of personality-modification.The early sf PULP MAGAZINES featured numerous devices of these and related types, and Hugo GERNSBACK's recruitment of the practising psychiatrist David H. KELLER did not result in any conspicuous sophistication of pulp sf's handling of psychological matters. Keller's most notable stories extrapolating psychological theory - the remarkable Freudian erotic fantasy The Eternal Conflict (1939) and "The Abyss" (1948), which tracks events following the release of a drug which destroys inhibitions - were too risque for pulp publication. The theme of "The Abyss" is featured also in Vincent MCHUGH's libidinous comedy I am Thinking of My Darling (1943), which anticipated counterculture-inspired LSD fantasies like William TENN's "Did your Coffee Taste Funny this Morning?" (1967; vt "The Lemon-Green Spaghetti-Loud Dynamite-Dribble Day") and Brian W. ALDISS's Barefoot in the Head (fixup 1969), rather than endorsing the view shared by Freud and Keller that repression of our more vicious urges is the necessary price we pay for society and civilization. Other notable sf stories which side with Keller in their suspicion of the unfettered id are Jerome BIXBY's "It's a Good Life" (1953) and James K. MORROW's The Wine of Violence (1981).The most impressive psychological study to appear in the pulps was not in an sf magazine but in UNKNOWN; this was L. Ron HUBBARD's classic Fear (1940; 1957), about a man who loses a slice of his life by repression and is tortured by the "demons" of guilt. Material from the story was transplanted into Hubbard's substitute psychotherapy, DIANETICS, which later became part of the dogma of SCIENTOLOGY; dianetic theory is much in evidence in the stories collected in Ole Doc Methuselah (1947-50 as by Rene Lafayette; coll 1972). It is a fairly common ploy in sf stories to use amnesiac heroes whose memories eventually turn out to be magnificently bizarre; examples are H.P. LOVECRAFT's "The Shadow Out of Time" (cut 1936; restored 1939), L.P. DAVIES's The Shadow Before (1970) and Keith LAUMER's The Infinite Cage (1972).One of the most famous pulp sf stories, Isaac ASIMOV's "Nightfall" (1941), deals with the psychology of revelation - a subject dealt with in a less pessimistic fashion in other stories of CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH. Asimov's more significant contribution to psychological sf, however, is the IMAGINARY SCIENCE of robopsychology, which he invented for the stories in I, ROBOT (1940-50; coll 1950), many of which feature robopsychologist Susan Calvin in confrontation with practical and theoretical problems arising from the Three Laws forming the basis of robotic ethics. Robopsychology remained an essential element in Asimov's ROBOT stories, especially such philosophically inclined ones as "That Thou Art Mindful of Him" (1974) and "The Bicentennial Man" (1976).Technologically assisted journeys into the hypothetical INNER SPACE of the human mind became increasingly common in post-WWII sf. The hero of "Dreams are Sacred" (1948) by Peter Phillips (1921- ) has to entice a catatonic dreamer back to the real world by disrupting his fantasy world. Other such journeys are featured in "The Mental Assassins" (1950) by Gregg Conrad (Rog PHILLIPS), "City of the Tiger" (1958) by John BRUNNER, "Descent into the Maelstrom" (1961) by Daniel F. GALOUYE, "The Girl in his Mind" (1963) by Robert F. YOUNG, Mindplayers (1987) by Pat CADIGAN, The Night Mayor (1989) by Kim NEWMAN and Queen of Angels (1990) by Greg BEAR. Several of the above-named stories extrapolate the idea of "telepathic psychiatry" with considerable intelligence; the Brunner story became the basis of the pioneering novel THE WHOLE MAN (fixup 1964 US; vt Telepathist 1965 UK). Another fine novel on the same theme is THE DREAM MASTER (1966) by Roger ZELAZNY; dreams are taken very seriously in Connie WILLIS's Lincoln's Dreams (1987).Brunner's numerous essays in psychological sf also include a notable story about a reality-distorting drug, The Gaudy Shadows (1960; exp 1971), and a psychiatric case-study, Quicksand (1967); both belong to categories of sf story which became very abundant in the 1960s. Several other post-WWII writers have shown a consistent interest in psychology. Alfred BESTER produced, among others, the quasi-Freudian vignette, "The Devil's Invention" (1950; vt "Oddy and Id"), a classic novel about a psychotic murderer who eventually undergoes psychic demolition and reconstitution, THE DEMOLISHED MAN (1953), and a remarkable study of confused identity, "Fondly Fahrenheit" (1954). Most of Theodore STURGEON's sf consists of psychological studies of loneliness, angst and alienation, often resolved by the quasitranscendental curative power of love; a few examples selected from a great many are the bitter study of prejudice, "The World Well Lost" (1953), the painful study of megalomania, "Mr Costello, Hero" (1953), and the classic novels of literal psychic reintegration, MORE THAN HUMAN (fixup 1953) and The Cosmic Rape (1958). Ray BRADBURY has written a number of neat stories turning on the vagaries of child psychology, most notably the ironic "Zero Hour" (1947) and "The World the Children Made" (1950; vt "The Veldt"), although most of his work in this nostalgic vein is pure fantasy. Very many of Philip K. DICK's sf stories are concerned with false worldviews of various kinds - and, indeed, with the possibility that reality is intrinsically subjective; Eye in the Sky (1957) features a series of ALTERNATE WORLDS incarnating neurotic worldviews, while THE THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER ELDRITCH (1965) was the first of a sequence of novels dealing with reality-warping drugs which eventually culminated in the deeply embittered black comedy A SCANNER DARKLY (1977). Several of Dick's novels deal with schizophrenia (in the true clinical meaning rather than the vulgar sense embodied in such split-personality stories as Wyman GUIN's "Beyond Bedlam" [1951]), including Martian Time-Slip (1964) and We Can Build You (1972), while Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964) features the full panoply of neuroses. PARANOIA and schizophrenia are sufficiently widespread in modern sf to warrant a separate entry in this book, but mention may be made here of the paranoid fantasies in which Barry N. MALZBERG has specialized to great effect; different sf situations become archetypes of paranoid delusion in Overlay (1972), Beyond Apollo (1972), The Day of the Burning (1974) and The Gamesman (1975), and even Freud cannot cope with the situations which confront him in THE REMAKING OF SIGMUND FREUD (1985). Sf situations are used in much the same way to construct exaggerated models of alienation in a number of stories by Robert SILVERBERG, including Thorns (1967), The Man in the Maze (1969) and Dying Inside (1972). Other writers who consistently extrapolate psychological syndromes into situations, landscapes and world-designs include J.G. BALLARD, in virtually all his work, and Philip Jose FARMER, whose early short stories - including the Oedipus-complex fantasy "Mother" (1953) and "Rastignac the Devil" (1954)-were pioneering exercises in this vein.The use of sf to address such psychological questions as the problem of identity - as in Algis BUDRYS's excellent WHO? (1958) or Silverberg's The Second Trip (1972) - is often closely related to mainstream work; in this instance, to such stories as Marcel AYME's The Second Face (1941; trans 1951), David ELY's Seconds (1963) - filmed as SECONDS (1966) - and Kobo ABE's Tanin no Kao (1964; trans as The Face of Another 1966 US). Variants on the sf/mainstream borderline include skin-colour-change fantasies, such as Chris Stratton's Change of Mind (1969) and the film Watermelon Man (1970), and sex-change fantasies, such as Hank STINE's Season of the Witch (1968) and Angela CARTER's The Passion of New Eve (1977). The processes of mind control involved in "brainwashing" - which play a key part in George ORWELL's NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR (1949) and which have become a standard element in DYSTOPIAN fiction - bestride the same borderline; exemplary works include A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1962) by Anthony BURGESS and The Mind Benders (1963) by James KENNAWAY. Sf writers can, however, come up with wild variants which attempt to clarify the moral and philosophical questions involved; examples include The Ring (1968) by Piers ANTHONY and Robert E. MARGROFF and The Barons of Behavior (1972) by Tom PURDOM. Psychological themes of considerable interest where sf has a monopoly include: the augmentation of INTELLIGENCE, as featured in Poul ANDERSON's Brain Wave (1954), Daniel KEYES's FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON (1959; exp 1966) and Thomas M. DISCH's CAMP CONCENTRATION (1968); psychotic plague stories like Gregory BENFORD's Deeper than the Darkness (1970; rev as The Stars in Shroud 1978) and Jack DANN's THE MAN WHO MELTED (1984); and stories dealing with the recording of emotional experiences for replaying by consumers, including Lee HARDING's "All My Yesterdays" (1963) and D.G. COMPTON's SYNTHAJOY (1972). The last story is a variant of the more common notion that memories, and perhaps knowledge, might be transferred from one mind to another, a theme featured in Curt SIODMAK's Hauser's Memory (1968) and various films by him, A.E. VAN VOGT's Future Glitter (1973; vt Tyranopolis) and James E. GUNN's The Dreamers (fixup 1980). Another related theme is that of recording and marketing dreams, a notion elaborately developed in Chelsea Quinn YARBRO's Hyacinths (1983) and James K. Morrow's The Continent of Lies (1984).Despite the profligacy of sf writers in devising machines and drugs as facilitating devices, the actual progress of experimental and physiological psychology has had very little impact on sf by comparison with the more abstract and theoretical side of the science, perhaps because of the kind of repugnance displayed in "The Psychologist who Wouldn't Do Awful Things to Rats" (1976) by James TIPTREE Jr - herself a psychologist, and better qualified than most to draw upon that inspiration. The heroic analyst selected by Jeremy LEVEN's computer-incarnated Satan (1982) to solve the problem of evil is similarly horrified by the gruesome activities of his experimentally inclined colleagues. The psychological implications of theories in LINGUISTICS have had more impact, notably in Samuel R. DELANY's BABEL-17 (1966) and Ian WATSON's THE EMBEDDING (1973).Mention must also be made of a group of stories dealing with the psychology of sf itself in a rather alarmingly cynical fashion. The pioneer was a story purporting to be an essay, Robert LINDNER's "The Jet-Propelled Couch" (1955), about a psychiatrist's encounter with a patient who believes he has a second existence as the hero of a series of SPACE OPERAS, a theme echoed by Iain BANKS in The Bridge (1986), where SWORD-AND-SORCERY motifs obtrude into real life. Norman SPINRAD's The Iron Dream (1972), in which Hitler channels his power-fantasies into pulp sf rather than politics, and Malzberg's Herovit's World (1973) and GALAXIES (1975) offer uncompromisingly harsh judgments about the consolations of sf, and have aroused considerable ire among sf fans. Some psychoanalytical literary criticism of well known sf works is even harsher - examples are C.M. KORNBLUTH's "The Failure of the Science Fiction Novel as Social Criticism" (1959), Robert Plank's analysis of Robert A. HEINLEIN's STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND (1961) in "Omnipotent Cannibals" (1971), and Thomas M. DISCH's analysis of the same author's STARSHIP TROOPERS (1959) in "The Embarrassments of Science Fiction" in Science Fiction at Large (1976; vt Explorations of the Marvellous) ed Peter NICHOLLS. The basic charge of all three essays is infantilism: together with the oft-quoted adage that the GOLDEN AGE OF SF is 13, they suggest that sf may appeal particularly strongly to people who cannot (yet) cope with reality, and to those condemned to remain existentially becalmed in psychological pre-adolescence forever. Spinrad's The Void Captain's Tale (1983) extrapolates the thesis that tales of the conquest of space are encoded sexual fantasies, and that SPACESHIPS are phallic symbols; the one in the story is propelled by a literal sexual drive. On the other hand, K.W. JETER's Dr Adder (1984) suggests that our deep SEX fantasies are much more exotic and much sicker than anything which can routinely be found in sf. Given that no one really knows what secrets lurk in the shadowy recesses of the unconscious mind and how our imaginative fictions are shaped to flatter them, speculation on such matters will presumably continue to roam freely across the whole spectrum of possibilities. [BS]See also: COMMUNICATIONS; CYBERNETICS; MEDICINE; PERCEPTION; TABOOS. PSYCHOTIC US FANZINE, ed Richard E. GEIS; begun 1953; after 20 issues retitled Science Fiction Review for 3 issues in 1955; then stopped publishing. Geis resumed it with Psychotic #21 in 1967, then again changed the title to Science Fiction Review from #28. It was by this time printing more serious reviews and interviews, though its main feature remained Geis's amusing, rambling, personal comments. As Science Fiction Review it won a HUGO for Best Fanzine in 1969 and 1970; in its first incarnation Science Fiction Review ended with #43, Mar 1971, at which point it had a circulation, unusually high for a fanzine, of 1700. The editor also won 7 Hugos as Best Fan Writer; 6 were for his work in The ALIEN CRITIC , a later fanzine he began in 1973 and which itself, confusingly, underwent a change of title to Science Fiction Review in 1975. [PN] PUBLISHER'S FISCAL CORPORATION ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION. PUBLISHING The history of sf publishing is, in its widest sense, the HISTORY OF SF itself; this entry, however, is concerned with a much more recent phenomenon, the emergence of GENRE SF as an identifiable and distinctive category of publishing, and therefore concentrates on US firms. A great amount of sf was published in the UK 1900-1950, but, although some transplanted US genre sf appeared, until about 1950 most UK firms published sf without any clear generic tagging, whether issued by prestige houses or by firms specializing in the library market.It was the first US sf magazines which, from 1926 onwards, established SCIENTIFICTION (for a few years) and then "science fiction" as a generic term. The original material which they featured was viewed, outside an immediate circle of enthusiasts, as debased and trivial pulp literature. The term became synonymous with ill written space adventure, while MAINSTREAM authors from outside the PULP MAGAZINES, who in retrospect have become identified as sf writers, pursued their careers and published their books without being tarred with the sf brush. This entry concentrates on sf book publishing; for magazine publishing SF MAGAZINES.Before 1945 only a small handful of stories from the sf and fantasy pulp magazines found their way into general publishers' lists; these included J.M. WALSH's Vandals of the Void (1931), Edmond HAMILTON's The Horror on the Asteroid (coll 1936 UK), L. Sprague DE CAMP's LEST DARKNESS FALL (1941) and two of De Camp's collaborations with Fletcher PRATT, and a number of UK anthologies partly or wholly drawn from the pages of WEIRD TALES. Meanwhile authors who sold their sf and fantasy to the better-paying and less-despised general-fiction pulps like The ARGOSY (Ray CUMMINGS, Otis Adelbert KLINE, A. MERRITT and others) regularly had their magazine serials issued in book form.In the absence of interest from established publishers, it fell to sf enthusiasts themselves to publish in book form the stories they admired ( SMALL PRESSES AND LIMITED EDITIONS). The first such project of real importance was the memorial volume of Stanley G. WEINBAUM's stories, The Dawn of Flame and Other Stories (coll 1936); the first enterprise to launch itself as a proper publishing imprint was ARKHAM HOUSE, founded by August DERLETH and Donald WANDREI to preserve the memory of H.P. LOVECRAFT, beginning with their first title, The Outsider (coll 1939).WWII postponed the establishment of any rival ventures. It also saw the publication of the first significant sf ANTHOLOGIES: Phil STONG's The Other Worlds (anth 1941) and Donald A. WOLLHEIM's Pocket Book of Science Fiction (anth 1943) and Portable Novels of Science (anth 1945). The immediate post-WWII years saw a boom in sf anthology publishing from respectable imprints, epitomized by Adventures in Time and Space (anth 1946), a mammoth compilation ed by Raymond J. HEALY and J. Francis MCCOMAS and published by the prestigious Random House. Other anthologists, notably Groff CONKLIN and Derleth, mined the sf magazines extensively. Successful as these books were, they did not immediately lead to an interest in publishing novels or single-author collections written by magazine-sf writers, and a rash of specialist publishers appeared to fill the gap. Some of these, such as the Buffalo Book Company, New Era and Polaris Press, vanished rapidly; others, such as HADLEY PUBLISHING COMPANY and PRIME PRESS, though short-lived, were more significant; and four imprints, FANTASY PRESS, FANTASY PUBLISHING COMPANY INC, GNOME PRESS and SHASTA, proved more enduring. There was no shortage of material to draw on, and a plentiful readership of sf enthusiasts who did not have access to the old magazines in which many of the stories were confined. To a significant degree it was the specialist publishers who determined the form in which future readers would perceive the stories of the stable of contributors to ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION who formed the core of their lists. For example, Isaac ASIMOV's Foundation series was merely a long string of magazine stories until Gnome Press's packaging turned it into a trilogy of FIXUPS; similarly, Shasta determined the shape of Robert A. HEINLEIN's Future History series.By the early 1950s, however, a number of established US publishers had become aware of the commercial potential of sf, and they began sf lists. DOUBLEDAY was the most significant and enduring of these, though Scribners had begun a few years earlier with Heinlein juveniles; others included Grossett & Dunlap and Simon & Schuster. In the UK a similar boom occurred. Many of the giant US anthologies were republished, generally heavily cut, and such publishers as Grayson & Grayson and Weidenfeld & Nicolson started sf lists. Michael Joseph Ltd attempted in the mid-1950s the first sf list to try to establish the category as worthwhile literature; its series, under the umbrella title "Novels of the Future", was edited by the romantic novelist Clemence DANE and included work by C.M. KORNBLUTH, Wilson TUCKER and others, but rode on the considerable reputation already established by John WYNDHAM, whose career with Michael Joseph had begun with The Day of the Triffids (1951); John CHRISTOPHER shortly followed a similar path. UK publishers like Michael Joseph found it easy to treat sf, with some confidence, as an unstigmatized kind of literature. At the same time, however, some of the worst sf ever published - assembly-line books from such publishers as CURTIS WARREN, Scion, BADGER BOOKS, Hamilton (who later became Panther Books) and the Tit-bits SF Library - appeared in the UK during these years.Where paperback sf remained, with certain exceptions, largely worthless ephemera in the UK until the late 1950s, in the USA it more quickly became an established part of publishers' lists. From their inception, publishers such as ACE BOOKS and BALLANTINE BOOKS relied heavily, and successfully, on sf; other publishers had a less considerable but nevertheless significant involvement. Ace, in particular, gave much encouragement to newer writers, using their Ace Double format ( DOS-A-DOS) to couple them with more established names. Competition from paperback publishers was already, by the 1960s, causing the magazine publishers severe difficulties, and from this time on it is fair to say that books became the dominant form of sf publishing, with work that had not previously been printed in magazine form often appearing in paperback originals. Through the 1960s and 1970s sf continued to grow in strength as a publisher's category. The last of the important specialist sf publishers, Gnome Press, died in the early 1960s, although FPCI continued into the 1970s on a semiprofessional basis; both had been squeezed out by the larger firms, whose resources they could not match. Arkham House, however, continued successfully to publish weird material, chiefly collections of macabre stories and Lovecraftiana. Harper & Row and Berkley/Putnam joined Doubleday as the leading US hardcover publishers of sf (though Doubleday continued to produce the largest volume of titles); in the UK GOLLANCZ books, in their distinctive yellow jackets, dominated the market, although Faber & Faber, Sidgwick & Jackson, Dennis Dobson and ROBERT HALE LIMITED (in descending order of discrimination and ascending order of volume) also made significant contributions. In the paperback field Ace Books faded in importance following the departure of editor Donald A. Wollheim; his new imprint, DAW BOOKS, begun 1972, took over Ace's place in the market with renewed success. In 1977 Ballantine retitled its sf imprint DEL REY BOOKS after its editor, Judy-Lynn DEL REY. From the late 1970s BANTAM BOOKS became a major rather than a minor player in sf publishing, especially after joining forces with Doubleday in 1986. In the UK, Panther Books was for many years the leading sf imprint, though this supremacy was challenged in the early 1960s by Penguin Books and in the 1970s by Sphere Books, Pan Books and the specialist imprint Orbit. By 1978 virtually every significant paperback publisher on both sides of the Atlantic included sf as an integral part of its list, and a high proportion of paperback editors were themselves sf enthusiasts.The 1970s also saw a revival of small specialist publishers, but, whereas in the 1940s they had been largely animated by a wish to bring unobtainable novels back into print, in the 1970s they were to a great degree feeding the demand of the growing market of sf and fantasy collectors, publishing obscure items by "collectable" authors (such as Lovecraft or, most particularly, Robert E. HOWARD) or lavishly produced illustrated editions of favourite works. FAX COLLECTORS EDITIONS was one of these, followed in the 1980s by MARK V. ZIESING, UNDERWOOD-MILLER and others. Another phenomenon of the 1970s, attesting to the academic respectability which sf was achieving in some quarters, was the establishment of scholarly reprint series, bringing classic sf works back into print in special durable editions. Such series have been published by ARNO, GARLAND, HYPERION PRESS and, most notably, GREGG PRESS. Thus sf novels first published in obscure and garish pulp magazines, later reprinted in hardcovers by loving enthusiasts when no commercial publisher would look at them, later still issued in equally garish paperback editions, were now made safe for posterity.By the 1980s, especially in the USA, sf publishing had begun to be weighted, more heavily than previously, towards lower-end-of-the-market series books, books derived from GAMES AND TOYS, film TIES and so forth, a rather disturbing phenomenon noted and discussed in several of this encyclopedia's entries (e.g., HISTORY OF SF, SERIES, SHARECROP and SHARED WORLDS). Many serious sf writers became disturbed at what they perceived as the shrinking of the middle-of-the-road part of publisher's lists, the "midlist", to which much of their work had previously belonged, as it was crowded out by formulaic "product". Nonetheless, serious sf publishing continued, and new companies arrived. Two brave, short-lived experiments were TIMESCAPE BOOKS, an imprint of Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books which lasted only 1981-3 but was prestigious and influential while it did, and BLUEJAY BOOKS (1983-6), a quixotic attempt by a small press to enter mass-market publishing. Much more successful was TOR BOOKS, initially a mostly paperback house, founded in 1981 and brought under the umbrella of St Martin's Press, which came from nowhere to be for a time the leading sf publisher (in terms of number of titles, but also very competitive in terms of quality) in the USA. By the beginning of the 1990s, US sf publishing was dominated by Putnam/Berkley/Ace, Bantam/Doubleday/Dell, Tor/St. Martins and Random House/Ballantine/Del Rey, with firms like Warner Books edging towards a full involvement. Specialist sf publishers like DAW and Baen Books ( Jim BAEN), while not exactly languishing, are a good way down the list, publishing much less sf/fantasy/horror than the big four groups.Sf publishing in the UK is on a much smaller scale, and is perhaps quirkier and more individualistic for that reason, though many titles published in the UK are reprints of US titles (a traffic that does not flow so efficiently in the other direction). Of those publishers mentioned above, Gollancz has survived more than one change of ownership in the 1990s, Pan no longer publishes a large amount of sf, the Sphere sf list has been absorbed into Orbit, and Penguin is less and less important as an sf publisher. Panther is long gone, having been transmuted into Granada and then Grafton, as such becoming a division of HarperCollins, which in 1992 is perhaps the major player in UK publishing. It has, however, received strong competition from Legend (a division of Random Century), from New English Library (a division of Hodder & Stoughton), from Gollancz, which now publishes paperbacks as well as hardcovers, from Orbit (from early 1992 a division of Little, Brown UK), from Headline (mostly fantasy and horror), and from Millennium (a division of the new-founded Orion Books). One interesting UK company has been The Women's Press, whose sf list has specialized in sf by women.A recession in book publishing generally in the late 1980s and early 1990s was predicted to affect sf particularly adversely, but it is surviving well to date, though the overall number of sf books published per year shrank a little from its 1988 peak, but then reached - in the USA at least - a new record, with LOCUS magazine counting 1990 separate sf/fantasy/horror titles (including reprints) published there in 1991, an average of over 5 per day. A further 1980s development in sf publishing has been the rise in popularity of the large-format trade paperback, which has the same page size as the hardcover edition, and is often printed and published simultaneously with it; in fact, in such instances it is usually more accurate to say that the trade-paperback version is the true first edition, the hardcover version representing a small run-on in a special binding for the institutional and gift markets. [MJE/PN] PUCCETTI, ROLAND (PETER) (1922- ) US philosopher and writer, long professionally involved in mind-body problems. He published several essays on the split-brain controversy, perhaps most accessibly in "Sperry on Consciousness: A Critical Appreciation" for The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy in 1977. Both of his novels deal, in their way, with the question. In The Death of the Fuhrer (1972 UK) Hitler's brain is transplanted into the body of a voluptuous woman, and "his" identity discovered, in (as it were) flagrante delicto by the hero at a moment of passion. The Trial of John and Henry Norton (1973 UK) convincingly updates the Jekyll and Hyde theme, in that the two Nortons of the title inhabit a single body as the result of an operation to cut the link between the two lobes of the upper brain, the left and right lobes becoming in effect two different people. One of them proves to be a murderer, and they are tried "together". RP's concern with identity problems was evident also in Persons: A Study of Possible Moral Agents in the Universe (1968 UK), which argues an expansion of the concept of "person" beyond its usual human-centred limitations and provides serious cognitive backing for the more speculative attempts in sf to apprehend the potential nature of ALIENS. [JC] PULLA, ARMAS J. [r] FINLAND. PULP CLASSICS Robert E. WEINBERG. PULPHOUSE: A WEEKLY MAGAZINE PULPHOUSE: THE HARDBACK MAGAZINE. PULPHOUSE PUBLISHING Based in Eugene, Oregon, this SMALL PRESS was founded by its publisher Dean Wesley SMITH in 1988, in association with Kristine Kathryn RUSCH and others, and specializes in sf, fantasy and horror. It began with PULPHOUSE: THE HARDBACK MAGAZINE in a limited edition. By 1990 it had become quite active in book publishing also, and in 1991, with 20 employees, the company seemed on the verge of becoming a full-scale publishing house; by mid-1992, however, most of these employees had been laid off. Along with its subsidiary Axolotl Press, Pulphouse publishes mostly limited editions. These include: a most unusual line of small paperbacks each containing a single short story (mostly reprints of award-winners and classics), a series that fell into abeyance in mid-1992; a series of novellas in book form; and the Author's Choice Monthly numbered series of single-author collections (28 of these by late 1992). Most of the above are sf or fantasy, but in mid-1991 Pulphouse announced a projected Mystery Scene imprint also. [PN] PULPHOUSE: THE HARDBACK MAGAZINE Quarterly "magazine" in hardcover-book format, in fact an ORIGINAL-ANTHOLOGY series; ed Kristine Kathryn RUSCH; published by Dean Wesley SMITH trading as PULPHOUSE PUBLISHING of Eugene, Oregon; 11 issues (each 1250 copies) Fall 1988-Spring 1991; publication projected to cease after 12 issues.This interesting, eclectic and mostly successful experiment alternated horror, speculative fiction, fantasy and sf in different issues. Horror and dark fantasy, in which categories much of the best work appeared, were the most repeated genres. The intended market appears to have been sophisticated: P:THM published some experimental work, and despite the notional pigeonholing of the fiction into categories, many of its stories transcend or ignore genre conventions. Many new authors were published by P:THM; more experienced contributors included George Alec EFFINGER, Charles DE LINT, Robert SHECKLEY, Lisa GOLDSTEIN, Joe R. Lansdale (1951- ) and Harry TURTLEDOVE. An anthology is The Best of Pulphouse: The Hardcover Magazine (anth 1991) ed Rusch.P:THM was replaced in 1991 by Pulphouse: A Weekly Magazine ed Smith, in small BEDSHEET format - first (test) issue marked "Issue Zero" (Mar 1, 1991), official #1 dated June 1, 1991 - though for a number of months the two titles overlapped. The new 48pp magazine was anything but weekly to begin with, and, belatedly realistic, changed its title to Pulphouse: A Fiction Magazine with #5 (Sep 20, 1991) and announced a biweekly schedule. In its eight official issues to Dec 1991 it published short fiction, serialized novels by Robert SHECKLEY, Spider and Jeanne ROBINSON and S.P. SOMTOW, and published nonfiction articles. P became more irregular in 1992, with only six issues, then lurched on with only two further issues in 1993, and one in 1994. #18 came out in early 1995. This latter edition was guest-edited by Damon KNIGHT, and featured all stories about Jesus, all written by graduates of CLARION SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS' WORKSHOP. P is perfectly capable of lingering on like this for years, displaying all the wan fascination of the Undead. [PN] PULP MAGAZINES In discussions of popular literature, as in this volume, the term "pulp" is used metaphorically as often as specifically, and when used specifically it has both a narrow and a wide sense.1. "Pulp" is used in this encyclopedia as an indication of format, in contrast to BEDSHEET and DIGEST. The pulp magazine normally measured 10in x 7in (about 25cm x 18cm); where the word "pulp" is used with no other indication of size, it can be assumed that the magazine in question was of approximately these dimensions.2. More broadly, "pulp" is used to designate the type of magazine whose format is as above. There was more to a pulp magazine than its size. Pulp magazines, as their name suggests, were printed on cheap paper manufactured from chemically treated wood pulp, a process invented in the early 1880s. The paper is coarse, absorbent and acid, with a distinctive sharp smell much loved by magazine collectors. Pulp paper ages badly, largely because of its acid content, yellowing and becoming brittle. Because of the thickness of the paper, pulp magazines tended to be quite bulky, often 1/2in (1.25cm) thick or more. They generally had ragged, untrimmed edges, and later in their history had notoriously garish, brightly coloured covers, many of the coal-tar dyes used to make cover inks being of the most lurid hues.It is usually accepted that Frank A. MUNSEY invented the pulp-magazine formula when in 1896 he changed the contents of The ARGOSY to contain nothing but fiction; previously the most popular periodicals had published a mixture of fiction, factual articles, poetry, etc. Sf was already popular in magazine format before the advent of the pulps - for example, in The STRAND MAGAZINE , The IDLER and MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE. However, these three and the many like them were aimed at a wealthier, more middle-class and possibly more literate audience than that which the pulps were invented to exploit: they were family magazines, with a more demure format and usually printed on coated, slick paper, which in the USA led to their being dubbed the "slicks" to distinguish them from their humbler brethren, the pulps. It is sometimes stated that the slicks were more expensive than the pulps, but this was not necessarily so.The popular slicks and the pulps were both part of a magazine-publishing revolution beginning in the 1880s, in which mass-distribution techniques and greatly increased advertising allowed the dropping of prices. Most magazines before the 1880s had had a small circulation and been relatively expensive, aimed at a narrow, upper-middle-class, literate group. But now, in the UK and USA, literacy was becoming nearly universal, population was increasing at an amazing rate (doubling in 30 years in the USA), modern technology was on the whole leading to more leisure, and there was as yet no cinema to offer opposition in the telling of stories. As a consequence, magazine circulations became massive towards the end of the century, over half a million in the most successful cases.The slicks and, a little later, the pulps rode the crest of this wave, with the pulps cornering the all-fiction-magazine market. Other periodical formats - some of which had a longer history ( BOYS' PAPERS; DIME-NOVEL SF) included the popular weekly tabloid, such as PEARSON'S WEEKLY.The general-fiction pulp magazine began to give way to specialized genre pulps after the founding in 1915 of Detective Story Monthly. (Frank Munsey had been a pioneer here, too, with Railroad Man's Magazine [1906] and Ocean [1907].) Western Story followed in 1919, Love Stories in 1921 and WEIRD TALES in 1923. It is surprising that sf did not get its own pulp until AMAZING STORIES in 1926, for the SCIENTIFIC ROMANCE had been a staple of the general-fiction pulps, along with LOST-WORLD stories and FANTASY, and in these fields the pulps had produced writers as celebrated and well loved as Edgar Rice BURROUGHS, Ray CUMMINGS, George Allan ENGLAND, Ralph Milne FARLEY, William Hope HODGSON, A. MERRITT, Sax ROHMER and Garrett P. SERVISS, as well as helped to popularize H.G. WELLS (more commonly published in the slicks) and H. Rider HAGGARD. Many of these writers retain their popularity.The advent of specialized pulps did little at first to disturb the hardened pulp writers, who turned from pirate stories to jungle stories, detective stories to sf, etc., with admirable sang-froid, though often with unhappy literary results. It was not until the late 1930s that sf writers in the pulps generally came to see themselves as specialists, concentrating usually on sf, fantasy and horror, and seldom ranging further. (The crossing of genre boundaries is not, however, a rarity among pulp sf and fantasy writers; many have written detective novels, and more recently some have done very well with DISASTER novels.)Nor did the advent of specialized pulps mark the end of sf in the general-fiction pulps. Argosy and BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE, for example, continued in the early 1930s to attract the most popular sf writers, including Burroughs and Farley; Argosy was paying up to 6 cents a word, and Blue Book also paid well, considerably better than the cent or even half-cent a word available from the sf pulps. However, by the end of the 1930s Argosy's rates had dropped to 11/2 cents a word. This marked the effective death of the general-fiction pulp, and probably had a lot to do with the new vigour apparent in such sf pulps as ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION.Although the sf pulps of the 1930s are remembered with great nostalgia by sf fans, the fact is that they formed a very minor portion of the overall pulp-publishing business. The great US pulp-publishing houses, such as Clayton, STREET & SMITH and Standard, published dozens of titles of which sf, in terms of number of titles and overall sales, formed only a tiny proportion. Sf as big business had to wait for the post-WWII paperback-book publishing boom ( PUBLISHING).Most of the pulp magazines, sf included, had died by the middle 1950s, to be replaced by DIGESTS ( SF MAGAZINES) in increasingly unhappy competition with paperback books; also, the reading of stories was itself giving way to the watching of TELEVISION. Indeed, many pulp historians would claim that, despite the proliferation of titles in the 1930s, the heyday of the pulp magazines with their half-million circulations ended with the paper shortages following WWI and the rapidly growing popularity of the CINEMA. The economic depression of the late 1920s probably prolonged the end, bringing with it an urgent need for fiction which escaped the greyness of an ordinary world in which individuals seemed impotent. In the pulps, individuals not only influenced events, they regularly saved the world.A full index of sf and post-1930 fantasy magazines with entries in this volume - including many pulp magazines - is given under SF MAGAZINES. Other periodicals in which sf was published are discussed under BOYS' PAPERS, COMICS, DIME-NOVEL SF and MAGAZINES, the latter entry listing the most important of the general slicks and tabloids which published sf in the period 1890-1940.The following are the general-fiction pulp-magazine entries: The ALL-STORY , The ARGOSY , The BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE , The CAVALIER , The POPULAR MAGAZINE and The SCRAP BOOK . 3 specialized early pulps given entries are SCIENCE AND INVENTION, THRILL BOOK and WEIRD TALES. A number of 1930s "weird-menace" and science/detective pulps whose sf content was very marginal do not receive entries, with the pious exception of Hugo GERNSBACK's SCIENTIFIC DETECTIVE MONTHLY. There is a small fantasy element in such various genre pulps as Oriental Stories (1930), Golden Fleece Historical Adventure (1938) and Jungle Stories (1938), but the line had to be drawn somewhere in the no-man's-land between sf and fantasy, and they have been omitted. The sf content of the SUPERHERO/supervillain genre is sometimes greater and, though many are omitted - including the extremely popular The Shadow (1931-49), whose sf content was marginal and irregular (but see Walter B. GIBSON for some details) - there are entries for CAPTAIN HAZZARD, CAPTAIN ZERO, DOC SAVAGE MAGAZINE, DR. YEN SIN, DUSTY AYRES AND HIS BATTLE BIRDS, FLASH GORDON STRANGE ADVENTURE MAGAZINE, G-8 AND HIS BATTLE ACES, The MYSTERIOUS WU FANG , The OCTOPUS , OPERATOR #5, The SCORPION , The SPIDER and TERENCE X. O'LEARY'S WAR BIRDS.A good account of life as a pulp writer is The Pulp Jungle (1967) by Frank Gruber; books on pulp publishing are Cheap Thrills: An Informal History of the Pulp Magazines (1972) by Ron GOULART, The Fiction Factory, or From Pulp Row to Quality Street: The Story of 100 Years of Publishing at Street & Smith (1955) by Quentin James Reynolds (1902-1965), and Pulp Voices: Interviews with Pulp Magazine Writers and Editors (chap 1983) ed J.M. Elliot; the feeling of the pulps themselves is captured in The Pulps: 50 Years of American Pop Culture (1970) ed Tony Goodstone; and The Shudder Pulps (1975) by Robert Kenneth Jones is on the "weird-menace" pulps. Also relevant is Yesterday's Faces: A Study of Series Figures in the Early Pulp Magazines: Volume 2: Strange Days (1984) by Robert Sampson, vol 1 being largely about precursors in the dime novels.3. When used metaphorically the word "pulp" describes the quality and style of the fiction published in the pulp magazines - and, by extension, any similar fiction, no matter in what format it was published. The term is still used in this sense today, 40 years after the death of the pulps proper. The pulps emphasized action, romance, heroism, success, exotic milieux, fantastic adventures (often with a sprinkling of love interest), and almost invariably a cheerful ending. In literary criticism "pulp" is often taken as a synonym for "stylistically crude", but this was not necessarily the case. Good narrative pacing, by no means a negligible quality, was regularly found in the pulps, as were other the virtues of colour, inventiveness, clarity of image and occasional sharp observation, such as might be seen in the work of the early pulp writer Jack LONDON. But it is true that the voracious appetite of the pulp market led to many writers becoming, in effect, word factories, writing too swiftly and to a cynical formula. The pulps did not generally pay as well for fiction as did the slicks, so economic pressure forced the pulp writer into high productivity.Today the term "pulp sf" is associated primarily with stories written, usually rapidly, for the least intellectual segment of the sf market - packed with adventure but with little emphasis on character, which is usually stereotyped, or on ideas, which are frugally and constantly recycled ( CLICHES). Many of the entries in this volume discuss typical pulp-sf themes and modes, including GALACTIC EMPIRES, HEROES, OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM, SEX, SPACE OPERA, SUPERMAN, SWORD AND SORCERY and VILLAINS. On the other hand, not all the fiction published in the pulp magazines was subject to the limitations that the word "pulp" usually suggests. Two famous examples from crime fiction of writers transcending their pulp origins, even while continuing to be published in a pulp format, are Dashiell Hammett (1894-1961) and Raymond Chandler (1888-1959), both associated with Black Mask, and examples from sf are common, too, or else the genre would long ago have died of malnutrition ( GOLDEN AGE OF SF). [PN] PULP SF PULP MAGAZINES. PULSARS BLACK HOLES; NEUTRON STARS. PUNISHMENT PARK Film (1970). Chartwell/Francoise. Dir Peter WATKINS, starring Carmen Argenziano, Stan Armsted, Jim Bohan, Frederick Franklin, Gladys Golden. Screenplay Watkins. 89 mins. Colour.Set in the NEAR FUTURE, PP concerns a group of young political dissidents who are forced to endure a government-controlled "run of the gauntlet" before they can attain amnesty for their political crimes. They must travel many miles across a US desert to reach a flagpole flying the Stars and Stripes, at the same time avoiding the patrols of government troops who have orders to shoot to kill. The presence of a tv team that follows one group of dissidents, increasingly involved with their situation, ingeniously increases our own involvement. Made at a time when youthful protest against the USA's involvement in Vietnam was at its peak, and a propaganda film on the side of the protesters, PP nevertheless shows a genuinely individual cinematic vision in its gloomy portrayal of a USA experiencing political repression. [JB/PN] PURDOM, TOM Working name of US writer Thomas Edward Purdom (1936- ) for all his sf, which he started publishing with "Grieve for a Man"for Fantastic Universe in 1957. His sf novels, beginning with I Want the Stars (1964 dos), have been unpretentious but competent adventures, generally set on challenging alien worlds. The Tree Lord of Imeten (1966 dos) vividly puts two human colonists into a crisis situation in the jungle while two native races fight one another. The Barons of Behavior (1972) mixes politics and social conditioning in a DYSTOPIAN future Earth. [JC]Other works: Five against Arlane (1967 dos); Reduction in Arms (1967 ASF; exp 1971).As Editor: Adventures in Discovery (anth 1969).See also: PSYCHOLOGY. PURPLE DEATH FROM OUTER SPACE FLASH GORDON. PURSUIT Made-for-tv film (1972). ABC Circle/ABC TV. Dir Michael CRICHTON, starring Ben Gazzara, E.G. Marshall, William Windom, Joseph Wiseman, Martin Sheen. Screenplay Robert Dozier, based on Binary (1972) by John Lange (Crichton). 72 mins. Colour.In this lively thriller, Crichton's directorial debut, an extremist politician plans to use a nerve-gas chemical weapon, capable of killing millions, in San Diego during a Republican convention in order to kill the US President. [JB/PN] PYNCHON, THOMAS (1937- ) US writer, all of whose works are FABULATIONS which resemble sf under some interpretations, though the PARANOIA-wracked worlds his protagonists inhabit defeat any secure reading of the malign figurations of reality. In V (1963) dovetailing searches for a character named V geographically reproduce the title; some events in the book border on sf. The Crying of Lot 49 (1966) presents a complex conspiracy theory of history, the tone of which seems to have influenced Robert SHEA's and Robert Anton WILSON's Illuminatus! trilogy (1975). Enormous and complex, GRAVITY'S RAINBOW (1973) offers no repose for a secure reading, but the search for its main protagonist (whose sexual climaxes predict and attract rockets from the V-2s on) fabulously posits an sf world. The walking dead in Vineland (1990) are - it is almost certain - not literally posthumous. TP's general concerns with ENTROPY, paranoia and COMMUNICATION have had a fruitful effect on some sf writers. [JC]Other works: Entropy (1960; 1977 chap UK), also contained in Slow Learner (coll 1986).See also: CYBERPUNK; FANTASY; HISTORY OF SF. |