MEAD, Shepherd

   Working name of US author (resident in Switzerland) Edward Mead (1914-), who has been active in various genres. SATIRE and comedy combine in most of his works, including his sf and fantasy novels: The Magnificent MacInnes (1949; vt The Sex Machine 1950), in which consumer society issatirized through the story of an electronic device that can predict personal preferences; The Big Ball of Wax (1954), in which Madison Avenue techniques are applied to corrupt a device that permits people to enter vicariously into the lives of others, a technique whose potential for good is subverted into a kind of feelie; and The Carefully Considered Rape of the World (1966), in which ALIENS artificially inseminate Earth females.SM worked in advertising before turning to writing, and his experience was put to good use not only in The Big Ball of Wax, the most interesting of his sf novels, but also in his best-known work (not sf), How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1952), for the staged version of which heshared a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony.

   JC/PN

   See also: LEISURE; MEDIA LANDSCAPE.