NEVILLE, Kris (Ottman)

(1925-1980)

   US writer of fiction who worked for many years as a technical writer specializing in plastics technology, and through his connection with the Epoxylite Corporation co-authored several texts on epoxy resins. He began publishing sf with "The Hand from the Stars" for Super ScienceStories in 1949, and for several years was a prolific contributor to FSF and other magazines; he wrote some fantasy as by Henderson Starke. His short fiction was assembled in Mission: Manstop (coll with some stories updated 1971) and in the posthumous The Science Fiction of Kris Neville (coll 1984) ed Barry N. MALZBERG and Martin H. GREENBERG, much of itdemonstrating his notable strengths as a writer: concision, clarity of style and a capacity to develop the sometimes routine initial material of a story so that its implications expanded constantly, rather in the manner mastered, with more recognition than KN ever received, by James TIPTREE Jr. "Hunt the Hunter" (1951), for instance, begins as a simple hunt on analien planet but expands subtly but quickly into a study in power politics whose trick ending very neatly turns the meaning of the whole tale in upon itself. Another early story, "The Toy" (1952), powerfully structures a very sharp lesson in ANTHROPOLOGY within an apparently routine tale about humans oppressing "inferior" aliens. One of his very few late stories, "Ballenger's People" (1967), counts as sf only through its moderatelyfuturistic form of urban transport; the tale itself describes, with superb concision, the complex internal politics of a deranged mind.KN's best known story is probably "Bettyan" (1951) which, with a sequel, "Overture" (1954), eventually became Bettyann (fixup 1970). It tells the story of ayoung girl whose adolescent sense that she really belongs somewhere else is, in classic sf fashion, confirmed by her discovery first that she is adopted, and second that she is a child of creatures from the stars. She is then forced to decide between heredity and environment, a choice whose implications are developed in a recent sequel, "Bettyann's Children" (1973) with Lil Neville, KN's wife and frequent late collaborator. Amongthe fiction KN wrote with her is a 1975 novel published only in Japanese whose title translates as "Run, the Spearmaker".KN's comparative silence for two decades before his death, a silence obscured by the book publication of old material (some of it revamped), was much to be regretted, for his intelligence was acute and his artistic control over his material was always evident. He was one of the potentially major writers in the genre who never came to speak in his full voice.

   JC

   Other works: The Unearth People (1964); The Mutants (1953 Imagination as "Earth Alert"; exp 1966); Special Delivery (1952 Imagination; 1967 chap dos);Peril of the Starmen (1954 Imagination; 1967 chap dos); Invaders on the Moon (1970) with Mel Sturgis (left uncredited through a publishing decision against which KN protested).

   See also: LIVING WORLDS; SUPERMAN.