LESSER, Milton

(1925-1988)

   US writer, more recently author of many crime novels and a few sf stories under what he eventually took as his real name, Stephen Marlowe. His sf mostly appeared in the ZIFF-DAVIS magazines, including hisfirst story, "All Heroes are Hated" (1950), but he was an active fan for some years before that. His other pseudonyms for sf included Adam CHASE, C.H. Thames (27 times), Christopher Thames (once), and the house name S.M.TENNESHAW; he has also written thrillers as Thames, Andrew Frazer and Jason Ridgway, as well as an Ellery Queen novel, Dead Man's Tale (1961). He wrote the juvenile sf novels Earthbound (1952), The Star Seekers (1953), Stadium Beyond the Stars (1960) and Spacemen Go Home (1961). Novels reprinted from magazines are Recruit for Andromeda (1953 Imagination as "Voyage to Eternity"; exp 1959), Secret of the Black Planet (1952 AMZ as "Secret of the Black Planet" and "Son of the Black Chalice"; fixup 1965), and The Golden Ape (1957 AMZ as "The Quest of the Golden Ape" by Adam Chase and Ivar JORGENSEN; 1959 as by Chase), which latter he wrote in collaboration with Paul W. FAIRMAN. ML also edited the anthology Looking Forward (anth 1953). He abandoned sf in the early 1960s, but someof his recent thrillers, notably the supernatural horror story Translation (1976) and The Valkyrie Encounter (1978), both as Marlowe, have fantasticelements; these are much more effective than his routine action-adventure sf.

   BS

   See also: GENERATION STARSHIPS.