BOND, Nelson S(lade)

(1908-)

   US writer and in later years philatelist, publishing works in that field. He began his career in public relations, coming to sf in 1937 with "Down the Dimensions" for ASF. Later in that year he published "Mr Mergenthwirker's Lobblies" in Scribner's Magazine, a fantasy which became a radio series, was made into a tv play (1957), and in its original form was collected in Mr Mergenthwirker's Lobblies and Other Fantastic Tales (coll 1946). It served as a model for the "nutty" fiction that NSB wrote for Fantastic Adventures in the early 1940s, comic tales involving implausible inventions and various pixillated doings, sometimes with an effect of excessive coyness. He wrote only two stories under pseudonyms, one as George Danzell (1940) and one as Hubert Mavity (1939).NSB's active career in the magazines extended into the 1950s; his markets were not restricted to the sf PULP MAGAZINES, and he became strongly associated with The BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE for stories and series usually combining sf and fantasy elements, often featuring trick endings reminiscent of O. Henry. Further collections, assembling most of his best work, are The 31st of February (coll 1949), No Time Like the Future (coll 1954) and Nightmares and Daydreams (coll 1968). Since the early 1950s he has been relatively inactive as a writer.His most famous single series, the Lancelot Biggs stories concerning an eccentric space traveller, appeared 1939-43 in various magazines; it was published, with most stories revised, as The Remarkable Exploits of Lancelot Biggs, Spaceman (coll of linked stories 1950). A similar series, about Pat Pending and his peculiar inventions, appeared 1942-57, all but the last in Bluebook; it remains uncollected. The Squaredeal Sam McGhee stories, also in Bluebook (1943-51), are tall tales, not sf. A series of three stories about Meg the Priestess, a young girl who comes to lead a post- HOLOCAUST tribe, appeared in various magazines, 1939-42; they remain uncollected, as do the four Hank Horse-Sense stories, which appeared in AMZ 1940-42.NSB's only novel in book form, Exiles of Time (1940 Blue Book Magazine; 1949) is a darkly told story about the end of things in Mu (DISASTER), told in a sometimes allegorical fashion. Perhaps because of the number of his markets, NSB established a less secure reputation in the sf/fantasy world than less versatile writers; not dissimilar in his wit and fantasticality to Robert BLOCH or Fredric BROWN, he is considerably less well known than either, though his work is attractive and often memorable.

   JC

   Other works: The Monster (coll 1953 chap Australia); State of Mind: A Comedy in Three Acts (1958 chap), a comic fantasy play; Animal Farm: A Fable in Two Acts (1964 chap), a play based on the 1945 novel by George ORWELL; and the supplemental material to James N. Hall's James Branch Cabell: A Complete Bibliography, with a Supplement of Current Values of Cabell Books (1974).

   See also: ADAM AND EVE; AMAZING STORIES; DISCOVERY AND INVENTION; LIVING WORLDS.