GEORGE, Peter (Bryan)

(1924-1966)

   UK writer and ex-RAF officer whose life and career seem to have been obsessed by nuclear WAR and its consequences. His best-known sf novel, Two Hours to Doom (1958; vt Red Alert 1958 US) as by Peter Bryant, was a straightforward story in which a preventive war, inaugurated by a general, almost leads to worldwide HOLOCAUST, and he may have had some mixed feelings about its satirical transmogrification into Stanley KUBRICK's brilliant DR STRANGELOVE: OR, HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING ANDLOVE THE BOMB (1963), in which doomsday is neither averted at the last moment nor entirely unwelcomed. Dr Strangelove: or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb * (1963) was credited solely to PG, though theinfluence of Terry Southern (1924-), who co-wrote the filmscript, is everywhere evident. A further sf novel, Commander-1 (1965), follows the desperate struggles of survivors after a nuclear war. PG's suicide followed soon after, during the composition of yet another novel on the same theme, to have been entitled Nuclear Survivors.

   JC

   See also: END OF THE WORLD; SCIENTISTS.