CONQUEST, Robert (George Robert Acworth)

(1917-)

   UK writer, poet, critic and editor, most active as an sf figure in the latter capacity, editing with Kingsley AMIS (whom see for details) the Spectrum ANTHOLOGIES , though some sf essays and reviews of interest appear in The Abomination of Moab (coll 1979), a non- fiction collection. RC was educated at Oxford (DLitt), was a member of the Diplomatic Corps 1946-56, and was later literary editor of the Spectator. He has an OBE. In addition to much poetry, political history and a non-sf novel, The Egyptologists (1965) with Amis, he published A World of Difference (1955), an sf tale whose complicated and discursive plot combines poltical (POLITICS) speculation with a remotely told scientific adventure centred on a new space drive destined to give humanity a chance to reach beyond the Solar System.

   JC

   Other work as editor: The Robert Sheckley Omnibus (coll 1973).