SMITH, George H(enry)

(1922-)

   US writer of much popular fiction and considerable sf, under his own name and several pseudonyms including books as Jan Hudson, Jerry Jason, Jan Smith, George Hudson Smith, Diana Summers (not sf), Hal Strykerand - mostly with his wife M. Jane Deer - M.J. Deer. He began publishing sf with "The Last Spring" for Startling Stories in 1953, and became very active after about 1960, releasing his first sf novels - Satan's Daughter (1961), 1976 - Year of Terror (1961; vt The Year for Love c1965), Scourgeof the Blood Cult (1961), The Coming of the Rats (1961) and Love Cult (1961 as by Jan Hudson) - in a rush. These early novels are, however,rather negligible, and the collaborative Flames of Desire (1963) as by M.J. Deer is post- HOLOCAUST soft pornography. But with The Four-DayWeekend (1966) he began to strike a more sustained note, and in the following year started a series set in the ALTERNATE WORLD of Annwn: Druids' World (1967), Witch Queen of Lochlann (1969), Kar Kaballa (1969dos), Second War of the Worlds (1976) and The Island Snatchers (1978). The last 3 vols of this sequence share the same main characters and present a complex interplay between this world and the alternative Welsh domain; they are GHS's most telling example of the kind of fantasy-textured sf at which he was best. Short stories of interest include "The Last Days of L.A." (1959) and "In the Imagicon" (1966).

   JC

   Other works: Doomsday Wing (1963); The Unending Night (1964); The Forgotten Planet (1965).As M.J.Deer: A Place Named Hell (1963).As Jan Hudson: Loveswept \#293: Water Witch * (1988).As Jerry Jason: Sexodus (1963); The Psycho Makers (1965).As Hal Stryker: NYPD 2025 (1985), the first of an apparently abortive series; Hawkeye (1991), a TECHNOTHRILLER.