GALOUYE, Daniel F(rancis)

(1920-1976)

   US writer who was born and died in New Orleans, Louisiana; a naval test pilot during WWII, he subsequently worked as a journalist, though the delayed effect of war injuries forced him to retire in 1965. He began to publish sf with "Rebirth" for Imagination in 1952, and appeared frequently in the magazines for about a decade with such tales as "Tonight the Sky Will Fall" (1952) and "The City of Force" (1959), characterized by a combination of a strong HARD-SF structure and a treatment of psychological concerns that was sometimes a touch uneasy. Twice he wrote (1953-4) as Louis G. Daniels. Stories from this period are collected inThe Last Leap and Other Stories of the Super-Mind (coll 1964 UK) and Project Barrier (coll 1968 UK); neither volume appeared in the USA.DFG's first novel, Dark Universe (1961), a POCKET-UNIVERSE tale (see also CONCEPTUAL BREAKTHROUGH), remains his most popular and is probably hisbest (it was nominated for a HUGO). Long after a nuclear HOLOCAUST, the survivors' descendants live sightless far underground. Their culture - from daily routine through cosmological concerns - is grippingly and originally conceived, though the book closes with a somewhat anticlimactic escape from darkness into a new age of "enlightenment". His next novels, Lords of the Psychon (1963), based roughly on "City of Force" (1959),Counterfeit World (1964 UK; vt Simulacron-3 1964 US) and The Lost Perception (1966 UK; vt A Scourge of Screamers 1968 US), share the same technical ingenuity and a continuing interest in worlds where the PERCEPTION of reality is controlled and restricted, where indeed theworlds themselves are arbitrary constructs, Counterfeit World being particularly interesting in this respect. In a sense it is a novel-length reworking of Frederik POHL's "The Tunnel Under the World" (1954), both being about construct-worlds designed for market research; it was filmed for tv in Germany in 1973 by Rainer Werner Fassbinder as WELT AM DRAHT (1973; vt World on a Wire). DFG's last novel, The Infinite Man (1973), wasless successful.DPG was never really able to capitalize on the promising beginning he had made as an sf writer. It may be that his war injuries kept him from a longer and more fruitful career.

   JC

   See also: GREAT AND SMALL; MEDIA LANDSCAPE; PSYCHOLOGY; VIRTUAL REALITY.