- ROCKLYNNE, Ross
- Working name of US writer Ross Louis Rocklin (1913-1988) for his sf stories, most of which appeared in such magazines as ASF from the mid-1930s up to 1947, beginning with "Man of Iron" for ASF in 1935. He specialized in SPACE-OPERA plots constructed around sometimes ingenious "scientific" problems, such as how to escape from the centre of a hollowplanet in "At the Center of Gravity" (1936), the first of the Colbie and Deverel series assembled with similar material in The Men and the Mirror(coll of linked stories 1973); the story is flawed by the fact that RR did not realize that a symmetrical hollow shell does not have an internal, centrally directed gravity field. A second series, The Darkness, was assembled as The Sun Destroyers (fixup 1973 dos); it features vast, nebula-like beings (LIVING WORLDS) and follows their life-courses through millions of years from galaxy to galaxy without the intervention of mankind. RR had one of the most interesting, if florid, imaginations of the PULP-MAGAZINE writers of his time, and wrote very much better than most. He continued to publish sf, rather sporadically, up to 1954 (he was interested in DIANETICS at that time); and later made a formidable comeback with several stories in 1968, demonstrating that he had no difficulty at all in adjusting his narrative voice to the more sophisticated demands of the later period - as in "Ching Witch!", one of the most assured tours de force in Harlan ELLISON's Again, Dangerous Visions (anth 1972), an ironic tale about the curious morality of a manwho, as a result of GENETIC ENGINEERING, has a lot of cat in him.JC/PNAbout the author: The Work of Ross Rocklynne: An Annotated Bibliography (1989 chap) by Douglas MENVILLE.
Science Fiction and Fantasy Encyclopedia. Academic. 2011.
