RIDLEY, Frank A(mbrose)

   The usual working name of UK politician, freethinker and author Francis Ambrose Ridley (1897-1994), most of whose books were on historical subjects. The Green Machine (1926) as by F.H. Ridley, though clearly cavalier in in its treatment of science - presenting as it does the eponymous bicycle as a spaceship capable of interplanetary travel - interestingly sends its protagonist to tour a crowded Solar System accompanied by a Martian ant bent on colonizing Earth.

   JC

   See also: HIVE-MINDS.