STRETE, Craig (Kee)

(1950-)

   US Native American writer - the suggestion has been bruited that CS is the pseudonym of a Cherokee who does not wish to reveal his real name, but this has not been confirmed. He has written as CS and under other names, by himself and in collaboration; at least 40 of the 80 or more stories claimed for him must be under unrevealed names. As CS, he began publishing for If in 1974 with the well known "Time Deer", a runner-up for the 1975 NEBULA; 2 other tales appeared simultaneously. From the mid-1970s he maintained a publishing connection with a Dutch house, and his first collection appeared initially in Dutch as Als Al Andere Faalt (coll 1976 Netherlands), only later gaining English-language releaseas If All Else Fails (exp coll 1980). His first book in English was The Bleeding Man and Other Science Fiction Stories (coll 1977) for olderchildren. Intensely written, spare, though with lunges into flamboyance, committed and often moving, his tales frequently combine prose rhythms and subject matter connoting a Native American background with more usual sf themes like COLONIZATION OF OTHER WORLDS, as in "When They Find You" from the latter vol. Though passionately couched, this work is sometimes crude in its opposition of the total horror of the White world with the mythic "naturalness" of the Native American: there is a sense, perhaps, ofprotesting too much. Later collections include Dreams that Burn in the Night (coll 1982) and Death Chants (coll 1988), the latter - as its titlesignifies - dealing frequently with terminal moments, though at times comically.After some children's fantasies - those published in English include Paint Your Face on a Drowning in the River (1978), When Grandfather Journeys into Winter (1979) and Big Thunder Magic (1990) - andthe non-genre Burn Down the Night (1982), CS published a carnival fantasy, To Make Death Love Us (1987) as by Sovereign Falconer, and Death in theSpirit House (1988), over which controversy reigned for some time due to accusations by Ron MONTANA that the book had been plagiarized, very nearly in whole, from a manuscript given by him to CS. Granting only a modicum of Montana's case, CS mounted an elaborate defence. As part of an agreedsettlement, Montana's version of the book was eventually published as Face in the Snow (1992), as by Montana and without reference to CS.

   JC