GALLUN, Raymond Z(inke)

(1911-1994)

   US author and technical writer, now retired. He was born and educated in Wisconsin, and has been a considerable traveller since. He began publishing sf stories at the age of 19 in 1929 with "The Space Dwellers" in Science Wonder Stories and "The Crystal Ray" in Air WonderStories. In the 1930s he published frequently in F. Orlin TREMAINE's ASF, his most famous contributions being the Old Faithful series: "Old Faithful" (1934), "The Son of Old Faithful" (1935) and "Child of theStars" (1936), the first of these novelettes featuring a sympathetically conceived Martian - much in contrast to the then dominant sf convention that ALIENS were to be depicted as monstrous - and the other two featuring that Martian's descendants. Along with other stories, the three were collected in The Best of Raymond Z. Gallun (coll 1978). During his prolific years - he published most of his 120 plus stories during 1929-42 - RZG also used the pseudonyms Arthur Allport, Dow Elstar, E.V. Raymondand William Callahan in his magazine fiction, publishing his first book, The Machine that Thought (1939 Science Fiction Stories; c1940-42 chap) asCallahan. His style was rough-hewn, but he plotted his work with vigour and packed it with ideas, often decidedly original: from a very early date, many of his stories show an interest in BIOLOGY and GENETIC ENGINEERING not widely shared by his contemporaries. He became inactive inthe 1940s and, though he has published again since about 1950, he has never regained the popularity of his early years, although one of his finest stories, reprinted in the Best volume, was "The Restless Tide" (1951 Marvel Science Fiction). He published nothing 1961-74, but remainedintermittently active through the 1980s.RZG's first novel, "Passport to Jupiter" (1950 Startling Stories), never appeared as a book. The style ofthe first to do so, People Minus X (roughly based on "Avalanche", 1935 ASF as by Dow Elstar; 1957), continued to reflect his many years of writing in a four-square idea-oriented style for the PULP MAGAZINES, and unsurprisingly derives its energy from the concepts which flood it, including body-miniaturization, body-recording, the transfiguration of human volunteers into space-resistant ANDROIDS, and much more. The Planet Strappers (1961) is more routine, but The Eden Cycle (1974) is a carefullywritten, slow-moving study of humans who, having received from aliens the gift of IMMORTALITY and a capacity to reinhabit imaginatively - through a kind of VIRTUAL REALITY - various epochs of world history (HISTORY IN SF), find themselves less and less capable of responding to theirexperiences.RZG is a writer - along with Edmond HAMILTON and Stanley G. WEINBAUM - whose writing reflected the expectations of magazine readers ofthe early 1930s; and like Hamilton (Weinbaum died early) his development after 1945 was tied, for good and for ill, to those early days. Late novels, like Skyclimber (1981), set on MARS, and Bioblast (1985), about the early years of a mutant SUPERMAN, may therefore lack some essential degree of appeal to today's audiences because they are crude, because they avoid sex, because their protagonists are unsubtle. But the sense of purpose persists, as does a humane vigour - as a late memoir, Starclimber: The Literary Adventures and Autobiography of Raymond Z. Gallun (1991) edJeffrey M. ELLIOT, amply conveys. RZG is the best of those pre-1939 sf writers who failed to remain well known into the current nostalgic period.

   JC

   About the author: The Work of Raymond Z. Gallun: An Annotated Bibliography \& Guide (1993) by Jeffrey M. Elliot.

   See also: ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION; FAR FUTURE; JUPITER; LONGEVITY (IN WRITERS AND PUBLICATIONS); OUTER PLANETS; SOCIAL DARWINISM.