- KLINE, Otis Adelbert
- (1891-1946)US songwriter, author and literary agent, active in music before beginning to write popular fiction in several genres, predominantly fantasy, in the early 1920s, most notably for Weird Tales and The Argosy. With the exception of marginal sf tales like "The Bride of Osiris" (1927)and space adventures such as "Race Around the Moon" (1939), most of his genre work is HEROIC FANTASY, and is generally thought to have been written in competition with (and slavishly derived from) Edgar Rice BURROUGHS's PLANETARY ROMANCES. The Robert Grandon sequence is typical:comprising The Planet of Peril (1929), The Prince of Peril (1930) and The Port of Peril (1932 Weird Tales as "Buccaneers of Venus"; 1949), itcarries the swashbuckling Grandon to VENUS, where he rises from slavery to marry a princess; the later adventures expand upon this. Linked to this series through the character of Dr Morgan - a scientist who makes interplanetary transfers easy - are The Swordsman of Mars (1933 Argosy; 1960) and its sequel, The Outlaws of Mars (1933 Argosy; 1960). In Maza ofthe Moon (1930) the P'an-ku who rule the MOON bomb Earth after Earth bombs them. Call of the Savage (1931 Argosy as "Jan of the Jungle"; 1937; vt Jan of the Jungle 1966) and its sequel Jan in India (1935 Argosy; 1974) again ape Burroughs, the target this time being Tarzan. In his later years, OAK's time was almost entirely taken up by his literary agency. Violentlycoloured, crudely racist and sniggeringly sexist, his tales represent pulp fiction at its worst, but they retain a raw compulsiveness.JCOther works: The Man who Limped and Other Stories (coll of linked stories 1946); Tam, Son of the Tiger (1931 Weird Tales; 1962); Bride of Osiris and OtherWeird Tales (coll 1975 chap).
Science Fiction and Fantasy Encyclopedia. Academic. 2011.