KAPP, Colin

(1928-)

   UK writer and worker in electronics. He began publishing sf with "Life Plan" for NW in 1958, where his best work soon appeared, including "Lambda 1" (1962), which gave its title to the John CARNELL collection, Lambda 1 (anth 1964), and Transfinite Man (1964 US; vt under the 1963 mag title The Dark Mind 1965 UK), in which a fierce unkillable SUPERMAN protagonist pits himself against the corrupt Failway (sic) Terminal in duels extending through various DIMENSIONS - access to which the Terminal attempts to control. Despite CK's otherwise unextraordinary plotting, the combination of invulnerability and rage in the tale generates a sense of nearly uncontrollable energy, imparting to this one book something of the exhilaration of Keith LAUMER and a touch of the complexity of Alfred BESTER, whose Gully Foyle - from Tiger! Tiger! (1956 UK) - is clearlyevoked. The enjoyable The Wizard of Anharitte (1972), though less energetic, features an intriguing sf power struggle on a backward planet, with the protagonist (who finds himself on the wrong side) repeatedly frustrated by the "wizard's" ingenious technological trickery.CK's later publications include a sequence of problem-solver tales assembled as The Unorthodox Engineers (coll of linked stories 1979), a short seriescomprising The Patterns of Chaos (1972) and The Chaos Weapon (1977 US), the former featuring a SUPERHERO implausibly capable of manipulating chaos, and the Cageworld sequence of SPACE OPERAS centred on a DYSON SPHERE: Cageworld (1982; vt Search for the Sun! 1983 US), The Lost Worldsof Cronus (1982) and The Tyrant of Hades (1982).

   JC

   Other works: The Wizard of Anharitte (1973); The Survival Game (1976 US); Manalone (1977); The Ion War (1978 US); The Timewinders (1980).

   See also: NEW WORLDS; NEW WRITINGS IN SF; TRANSPORTATION.