CAMPBELL, H(erbert) J.

(1925-)

   UK research chemist, writer and editor. He was active during the early 1950s as a fan. After writing some science articles he gradually branched out into the world of sf, as well as selling line drawings to many magazines, including Amateur Photographer and Television Weekly. He scripted the Daily Herald cartoon series Captain Universe and served as technical editor and then editor 1952-6 of AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION, contributing many scientific articles to the magazine, which in general improved under his editorship. He also edited Tomorrow's Universe (anth 1953), Sprague de Camp's New Anthology (coll 1953 UK), Authentic Science Fiction Handbook (1954 chap), mostly containing definitions of scientific terms, and Authentic Book of Space (anth 1954), which last was a mixture of articles and stories. Increased pressure of research work forced him to leave the field in 1956; he gained a PhD in Chemistry in 1957, and from that point concentrated on writing textbooks.His own fiction was not, perhaps, of substantial interest, but his work was never incompetent. Novels published under his own name include The Last Mutation (1951), The Moon is Heaven (1951), a RECURSIVE tale which includes a portrait of Arthur C. CLARKE, World in a Test Tube (1951), Beyond the Visible (1952), Chaos in Miniature (1952), Mice - Or Machines (1952), Another Space - Another Time (1953), Brain Ultimate (1953), The Red Planet (1953) and Once Upon a Space (1954). Under the house name Roy SHELDON he wrote the Magdah sequence - Mammoth Man (1952), Two Days of Terror (1952), Moment out of Time (1952) and The Menacing Sleep (1952) - and the Shiny Spear sequence - Atoms in Action (1953) and House of Entropy (1953). It is probable, though not certain, that he also wrote most or all of the remaining Roy Sheldon novels (with the exception of The Metal Eater, 1954, which was by E.C. TUBB): Gold Men of Aureus (1951), Phantom Moon (1951), Energy Alive (1951), Beam of Terror (1951), Spacewarp (1952) and The Plastic Peril (1952).

   SH/MJE

   See also: ENTROPY; GREAT AND SMALL.