TREVOR, Elleston

   Initially the most famous pseudonym and latterly the legal name of the UK writer born Trevor Dudley-Smith (1920-), who eventually became best known for his Quiller espionage tales as by Adam Hall, after an early career writing children's fantasies (see listing below), some under his original name. His first novel of genre interest, The Immortal Error (1946), a fantasy, tells of an accident survivor who wakes up with the wrong soul in residence. The Domesday Story (1952 as by Warwick Scott; vt Doomsday 1953 US as ET and 1972 US as Adam Hall) tells of fears that an H-bomb test inAustralia will bring about the end of the world. Forbidden Kingdom (1955) is a children's LOST-WORLD story about a high-tech enclave in the Kalahari desert. The Pillars of Midnight (1957) depicts the effects of a devastating disease. The Mind of Max Duvine (1960) is about telepathy. The Shoot (1966) returns to weapons-testing, this time depicting the launchingof a missile whose fuel is dangerously unstable. The Sibling (1979 US as Adam Hall; 1989 US as ET) is horror. Deathwatch (1984) is about theNEAR FUTURE accidental creation of a fatal virus by GENETIC ENGINEERING and its subsequent use by rogue Soviet hardliners to cause a decimating plague in the West.Some of the Quiller tales, such as The Berlin Memorandum (1965; vt The Quiller Memorandum 1967) and The Theta Syndrome(1977), have TECHNOTHRILLER elements. A writer of almost excessive fluency, ET has made use of sf devices in passing, but never - it must be said - with much air of conviction.

   JC

   Other works: Children's fantasies, many with shared characters: Into the Happy Glade (1943) andBy a Silver Stream (1944), both as Trevor Dudley-Smith, followed by Green Glade (1959)as ET; the Wumpus sequence, comprising Wumpus (1945), More About Wumpus (1947) and Where's Wumpus? (1948); the Deep Wood sequence, comprising DeepWood (1945), Heather Hill (1946), The Secret Travellers (1947), Badger's Beech (1948), which was also serialized on BBC radio, Ants' Castle (1949), 2 closely-linked tales - The Wizard of the Wood (1948) and Badger's Moon (1949) - themselves comprising a short sf subseries featuring space travel, Mole's Castle (1951), Sweethallow Valley (1951), Badger's Wood (1958) and Squirrel's Island (1963); Ants' Castle (1949); Secret Arena(1951); The Racing Wraith (1953) as Trevor Burgess; The Crystal City (1959), set a thousand fathoms beneath the surface of the ocean.