McINTOSH, J.T.

   Pseudonym (in some earlier work spelled M'Intosh) of Scottish writer and journalist James Murdoch MacGregor (1925-), used for all his sf writing, though he has written non-sf under his own name. He began publishing sf with "The Curfew Tolls" in ASF in 1950, producing many stories (though no collections) through 1980. With his first novel, World out of Mind (1953 US), he fully entered a career that was, in its early years, notablysuccessful. World out of Mind implausibly but enjoyably sets a disguised ALIEN on an Earth dominated by aptitude tests, where he wins his way tothe top and thence prepares the way for INVASION. Born Leader (1954 US; vt Worlds Apart 1958) puts two sets of colonists from a destroyed Earth onnearby planets, where the authoritarian set conflicts with the libertarian set. In One in Three Hundred (1954 US), with Earth doomed again, pilots of the only rocketships available are given the task of selecting those they will save of the planet's billions of inhabitants. The Fittest (1955 US; vt The Rule of the Pagbeasts 1956 US) depicts the harrowing effects of a misfired experiment to increase animal INTELLIGENCE. 200 Years to Christmas (1961 dos US) is a routine but competent variation on theGENERATION-STARSHIP theme.Although some of JTM's novels in the 1960s and 1970s continued to show his professional skill with a plot and his competence at creating identifiable characters, his work began to show some slackening of interest: The Million Cities (1958 Satellite; rev 1963 US) is a bland urban DYSTOPIA; The Noman Way (1952 as "The E.S.P. Worlds";1964) uninterestingly repeats the test situation of his first novel, which seems to have been something of a preoccupation of his, for it turns up also in the serial "The Lady and the Bull" (1955 Authentic). Out of Chaos (1965) is a routine post- HOLOCAUST novel; Time for a Change (1967; vtSnow White and the Giants 1968 US) treats a local intrusion of time-travelling aliens as a domestic issue; Flight from Rebirth (1960 as "Immortality - For Some"; much exp 1971 US), a chase tale in an urbansetting, again features testing.JTM never lost the vivid narrative skills that made him an interesting figure of 1950s sf, but his failure to challenge himself in his later career led to results that verged on mediocrity. After 1980 he fell silent.

   JC

   Other works: Six Gates from Limbo (1968); Transmigration (1970 US); The Cosmic Spies (1972); The Space Sorcerers (1972; vt The Suiciders 1973 US); Galactic Takeover Bid (1973); Ruler of the World (cut 1976 Canada; rev vt This is the Way the World Begins 1977 UK); Norman Conquest 2066 (1977); A Planet Called Utopia (1979 US).

   About the author: J.T. McIntosh: Memoir \& Bibliography (1987 chap US) by Ian Covell.

   See also: ANDROIDS; DISASTER; END OF THE WORLD; GAMES AND SPORTS; IMMORTALITY; SUN.