McCUTCHAN, Philip

(1920-)

   UK writer, a Sandhurst attendee (though not graduate), author of several routine sf thrillers, most of them in his Commander Shaw series, which began with Gibraltar Road (1960) and closed with Corpse (1980). Of these, Skyprobe (1966), The Screaming Dead Balloons (1968), The All-Purpose Bodies (1969) and The Bright Red Business Men (1969) make theclearest use of sf instruments, though never centrally. The Commander's function, which is to involve himself with espionage and to save the world from mad SCIENTISTS who grow extraterrestrial fungi, construct malign CYBORGS, etc., generally necessitates the destruction of any sf devicebefore the story's end.

   JC/PN

   Other works: Bowering's Breakwater (1964), a UK liner faces trouble after the start of a nuclear world war; A Time for Survival (1966), a post- HOLOCAUST story of unremitting bleakness; The Day of the Coastwatch (1968), a DYSTOPIA; This Drakotny . . . (1971);Flood (1991), the northern polar icecap melts.