- BIGGLE, Lloyd Jr
- (1923-)US author and musicologist, with a PhD in musicology from the University of Michigan. His interest in MUSIC and the other ARTS, perhaps watered down more than necessary in an effort to make such concerns palatable to his readers, appears throughout his sf, which began to appear in 1956 with "Gypped", on a music theme, in Gal. His first novel, The Angry Espers (1959 AMZ as "A Taste of Fire"; rev with cuts restored 1961 dos), features an Earthman involved in complicated adventures on an alien planet, and sets the tone for much of his subsequent work in the field. The Jan Darzek sequence - All the Colors of Darkness (1963), Watchers of the Dark (1966), This Darkening Universe (1975), Silence is Deadly (1977) and The Whirligig of Time (1979) - recounts the adventures of a late-20th-century private eye who moves from investigating aliens to chairing the Council of Supreme, which itself governs the home Galaxy; by the third volume he is pitted against the inimical Udef, a Dark Force destroying civilization after civilization in the Smaller Magellanic Cloud. A similarly palatable Galaxy (LB's clearest affinity in his novels is to writers like Murray LEINSTER) provides a backdrop and sounding board for the Cultural Survey featured in The Still, Small Voice of Trumpets (1961 ASF as "Still Small Voice"; exp 1968) and The World Menders (1971). Monument (1962 ASF; exp 1974) is an effective (though ultimately amiable) space-opera parable about imperialism. Selections of his stories, most of which are competent but undemanding, appear in The Rule of the Door and Other Fanciful Regulations (coll 1967; vt Out of the Silent Sky 1977; vt The Silent Sky 1979 UK), The Metallic Muse (coll 1972), which contains some of his best arts-related tales, and A Galaxy of Strangers (coll 1976). As a writer of SPACE OPERA, LB is seldom less than relaxed and entertaining; it may be intellectual snobbery to ask for anything more, but his stories often convey the sense of an unrealized greater potential, and Orson Scott CARD argues his merits in his introduction to The Tunesmith (1957 If; 1991 chap dos). LB has been an active member of the SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA, and edited Nebula Award Stories Seven (anth 1972).JCOther works: The Fury Out of Time (1965); The Light that Never Was (1972); Alien Main (1985) with T.L. SHERRED (whom see for details); two Sherlock Holmes pastiches - The Quailsford Inheritance: A Memoir of Sherlock Holmes from the Papers of Edward Porter Jones, his Late Assistant * (1986) and The Glendower Conspiracy: A Memoir of Sherlock Holmes from the Papers of Edward Porter Jones, his Late Assistant * (1990); Interface for Murder (1987) ,A Hazard of Losers (1991), and Where Dead Soldiers Walk (1994), detective novels.
Science Fiction and Fantasy Encyclopedia. Academic. 2011.
