ING, Dean

(1931-)

   US writer whose work makes effective use of his years in the Air Force (1951-5) and in the engineering profession (1957-70), and reflects in its pragmatic tone - though not in its plotting, which can be pixilated - his training in behavioural psychology (PhD in speech, 1974). Much ofhis fiction can be described as SURVIVALIST, insofar as military tales set in a post- HOLOCAUST USA necessarily inhabit survivalist terrain; but the violence of his better work is relatively restrained, and the libertarianism (LIBERTARIAN SF) which underpins his conception of proper behaviour cannot be described as unthinking. Collections like High Tension (coll 1982) and Firefight 2000 (coll 1987), the latter including bothfiction and nonfiction, amply demonstrate the cogency of his concerns.DI began writing sf with "Tight Squeeze" for ASF in 1955, though he became active only in the late 1970s. His first novel, Soft Targets (1979), interestingly copes with terrorism in a NEAR FUTURE setting, though a besetting weakness for melodrama diverts attention from the serious points he makes about the fatal precariousness of societies in the advanced Western World. DI is, in fact, much less interested in that precariousnessthan in its consequences, and his most significant work, the Ted Quantrill sequence-Systemic Shock (1981), Single Combat (1983) and Wild Country (1985) - is set in a desolated and paranoid post-Bomb USA under the thumbof a theocracy. (The similarity of this setting to Robert A. HEINLEIN's Future History is sufficiently obvious to count as a homage.) Quantrill'slife, as he matures, presents a model of and argument for the individual who admits no restraints upon his behaviour but his own recognizance. That Quantrill does not behave poorly derives, perhaps, more from the author'sdecency than from any notion that near-absolute autonomy makes one fully human. Other titles of interest include several novels written as with Mack REYNOLDS, who died in 1983, based on complete first drafts written byReynolds; they are Eternity (1984), Home Sweet Home: 2010 A.D. (1984), The Other Time (1984), in which an archaeologist uses TIME TRAVEL to help the Aztecs defeat the Spanish, The Lagrangists (1983), Chaos in Lagrangia (1984), Trojan Orbit (1985) and Deathwish World (1986). His solo books include Anasazi (coll of linked stories 1980), Pulling Through (coll 1983), which comprises a short ROBINSONADE and a series of survivalistarticles designed to add versimilitude to the course of the main story, and The Big Lifters (1988), a HARD-SF tale in which entrepreneurship wins the day. In general, DI presents what might be called the acceptable face of survivalism.

   JC

   Other works: Blood of Eagles (1986), associational; The Ransom of Black Stealth One (1989) and its sequel, Butcher Bird (1993); Cathouse * (fixup 1990), tales set in Larry NIVEN's Man-Kzin universe; The Nemesis Mission (1991); Silent Thunder (1991 chap dos).

   About the author: The Work of Dean Ing: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide (1990 chap) by Scott A. Burgess.

   See also: COLONIZATION OF OTHER WORLDS; IMMORTALITY; SOCIAL DARWINISM.