KYLE, David A(ckerman)

(1919-)

   US sf fan, writer, illustrator, owner of several radio stations, and publisher. DK is a member of "first fandom", having been active in the field since 1933. Until the 1970s his writing activities were only occasional. His first published sf was "Golden Nemesis" for Stirring Science Stories in 1941. In 1948, with Martin GREENBERG, he founded thefan publishing company GNOME PRESS, which maintained what were probably the highest standards of any of the SMALL PRESSES of the period; DK designed several of the book jackets. For much of the 1970s DK was resident in the UK, where he wrote two well and lavishly illustrated coffee-table-style books on sf, the first dealing primarily with the HISTORY OF SF and the second with sf's dominant themes: A PictorialHistory of Science Fiction (1976) and The Illustrated Book of Science Fiction Ideas and Dreams (1977). Both are descriptive rather than analytic, and the main interest of their texts, which are conservatively skewed towards HARD SF of the so-called GOLDEN AGE OF SF, is in their well informed data about sf PUBLISHING.When E.E. "Doc" SMITH's Lensman books were reissued in the early 1980s, new novels were published by other hands, continuing and infilling the series. DK, who had been a friend of Smith, wrote 3 of these: The Dragon Lensman (1980), Lensman from Rigel(1982) and Z-Lensman (1983). The second, perhaps the most interesting, is about an ALIEN who has progressed to the level of Second Stage Lensman. DK succeeded to a degree in capturing the flavour of Smith, but not his compulsiveness.

   PN

   See also: BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION AWARD; FUTURIANS; ILLUSTRATION; NEW WAVE.