DUFF, Douglas V(alder)

(1901-)

   UK writer, usually of adventure novels for older boys, though several of his titles are clearly addressed to an adult audience. Not all his sf or fantasy has been traced; those that have include The Horned Crescent (1936), Jack Harding's Quest (1939), Peril on the Amazon (1946), Atomic Valley (1947), The Man from Outer Space (1953) and The Nuclear Castle Story (1958). Of these, perhaps the most interesting in Jack Harding's Quest, a LOST WORLD story set in the Middle East, where a Lost Tribe of Israel has been hoarding the Seven Horns of Joshua; the eponymous young protagonist, with the aid of some scientific boffins, establishes the reality of the Horns, which have the effect of disrupting matter at the molecular level. This effect is acoustically recorded; and the Horns are then unilaterally destroyed by the British, to keep the secret from the German foe. The Lost Tribe knuckles under.

   JC