MEREDITH, Richard C(arlton)

(1937-1979)

   US writer who began publishing sf with "Slugs" for Knight magazine in 1962. His first novel, The Sky is Filled with Ships (1969), is an effective SPACE OPERA in which colonies revolt against a tyrannical corporation. We All Died at Breakaway Station (1969) is a bleak, well crafted space opera in a kind of Alamo setting, where a CYBORG must withstand both external enemies and the devils of introspection. Run, Come See Jerusalem! (1976) is a complex, thoroughly worked out TIME-PARADOXnovel. Time also figures centrally in the Timeliner sequence - At the Narrow Passage (1973; rev 1979), No Brother, No Friend (1976; rev 1979)and Vestiges of Time (1978; rev 1979), all 3 being assembled as The Timeliner Trilogy (omni 1987 UK) - during the course of which ALIENSattempt to change Earth's past, and, more importantly, to punish humanity in various PARALLEL WORLDS. RCM's sense of history was acute and atmospheric, and his ALTERNATE-WORLDS tales are, as a consequence, hauntingly suggestive. Into these frameworks his heroes - wounded and reluctant but ultimately stoic - fit neatly.

   JC/PN

   Other work: The Awakening (1979).

   See also: HITLER WINS.