FISHER, Vardis (Alvero)

(1895-1968)

   US writer, raised in a Mormon family; his best-known single novel, Children of God (1939), is about the Mormons. His Testament of Man sequence covers the whole of human history, extending into many volumes the basic strategy which shapes several novels by F. Britten AUSTIN, the 6 vols of Johannes V. JENSEN's The Long Journey (1922-4) and other early-20th-century celebrations of the drama of EVOLUTION. Of sf interest in the Testament are the first 5 titles, which deal with prehistory: Darkness and the Deep (1943), The Golden Rooms (1944), Intimations of Eve(1946), Adam and the Serpent (1947) and The Divine Passion (1948), which comprise a formidable attempt at sustained anthropological sf.

   JC

   See also: ADAM AND EVE; ORIGIN OF MAN.