FRANKLIN, H(oward) Bruce

(1934-)

   US critic, John Cotton Dana Professor of English and American Studies at Rutgers. In 1961 HBF gave at Stanford one of the earliest university courses in sf in the USA. In 1972 he was dismissed by Stanford for giving speeches protesting the university's involvement in the Vietnam War - a case well known to those interested in questions of academicfreedom. His Future Perfect: American Science Fiction of the Nineteenth Century (anth 1966; rev 1968; exp and rev 1978) has been one of the mostinfluential of sf ANTHOLOGIES, in drawing attention to the sheer volume of 19th-century sf. A later HBF anthology, containing sf about nuclearweapons, is Countdown to Midnight (anth 1984). HBF's two other books about sf are Robert A. Heinlein: America as Science Fiction (1980) and War Stars: The Superweapon and the American Imagination (1988). The formerrelates HEINLEIN's career to contemporary US history from a Marxist perspective; the latter is a pungent and important study about the US preoccupation with super- WEAPONS in fact and fiction, and the way in which the fact has been influenced by the fiction. HBF has published many other critical articles on sf and is among the genre's most respected commentators. He received the PILGRIM AWARD in 1983. He has been a consulting editor of SCIENCE-FICTION STUDIES since its inception.

   PN

   See also: CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS ABOUT SF; SF IN THE CLASSROOM; WAR.