HINTON, C(harles) H(oward)

(1853-1907)

   UK author whose many essays about the fourth and other DIMENSIONS in space and time are collected along with some works of fiction in Scientific Romances (coll 1886) and Scientific Romances: Second Series (coll 1902). His interest was partly inspired by Edwin ABBOTT'sFlatland (1885), and he wrote a novel of his own set on a circular two-dimensional world, An Episode of Flatland (1907). His other sf story is "Stella", in Stella and An Unfinished Communication (coll 1895; reprinted as part of Scientific Romances: Second Series), a short novel about an invisible girl which antedated H.G. WELLS's The Invisible Man (1896). "An Unfinished Communication" is a metaphysical fantasy whichrepresents life after death as freedom to move in the fourth dimension (time) through the moments of life, "unlearning" and re-evaluating. "ThePersian King", in Scientific Romances, is a curious allegory applying mathematical logic to Christian ideas of atonement. Interest in CHH's work has recently been revived by virtue of the attention paid to it in stories and essays by Rudy RUCKER.

   BS

   See also: ESCHATOLOGY; INVISIBILITY; MATHEMATICS; RELIGION.