Sci-Fi Pseudonyms

Factual Questions
1

The question on Schroedinger’s Cat led to some reflection on Bob Heinlein’s descent into less-than-sterling sci-fi near the end of his career. That got me to thinking about some of the enormous short-story anthologies I used to gobble up as a kid. I remember being somewhat stunned when I discovered that in these anthologies, a lot of the stories were written by well known authors under a pseudonym. With a little bit of effort this morning, I’ve found exactly two pseudonyms for some of the greats of the Golden Age of Science Fiction:

Robert Anson Heinlein = Anson McDonald

John W. Campbell = Don A. Stuart

But I could swear that other folks, like Asimov, Clarke, and Sturgeon also wrote short stories under pseudonyms. Does anyone know where I can find a sort of a pseudonym list for sci-fi authors? And just why is it that science fiction authors wrote so much under less-famous names?

2

There probably were many reasons why authors did this. Two in particular come to mind. First, sci-fi was once looked down upon by so-called serious writers. Someone who had a non-sci-fi career (or who had hopes for one) might have used a pseudonym for that reason. Also, sci-fi publishing more than 30 years ago was dominated by pulp magazines (Amazing, etc.) Some more prolific writers might have more than one story ready for publication at a time. Since publishers wanted to appear to feature different authors, they published the second story under a pseudonym.

Actually, I just thought of a third reason, which is related to the first. I seem to remember that some established hard sci-fi writers, when they published outside this genre (for example, for the juvenile market) would use a pseudonym.

3

Vague memory, so unsubstantiated:

Phillip Jose Farmer = Kilgore Trout (the real world novelist, not the fictional novelist)

And what was that SF book whose conceit was that it had been written by Hitler? Or was that PJF too?

(What kills me is like: “Anne Rice Writing as Anne Rampling.” What’s up with that?)

4

Harlan Ellison wrote as Cordwainer Bird.
Phillip Jose Farmer did write as Kilgore Trout. At least that’s what Kurt Vonnegut said in an interview that I actually heard.
Barry Malzberg is a pseudonym for another SF writer, I think.
WJ Stuart (“Forbidden Planet”) is a pseudonym for someone else, I think.

5

Heinlein used the Anson penname whenever he had more than one story published in the same issue (usually “Astounding Science Fiction”). John Campbell got him to do this, because he didn’t want to look like he was padding the mag with nothing but Heinlein.

When John Campbell started out writing, his stories were in the pulp vein, a la EE “Doc” Smith. Later, when he began writing more thoughtful stories, he didn’t want his earlier pulp stories to color readers’ expectations. Don A. Stuart came from his 1st wife’s maiden name, Dona~ Stuart.

Asimov published his “Lucky Starr” juveniles under the pen-name “Paul French.” He later reclaimed them under his own name.

Harlan Ellison used the name “Cordwainer Bird” whenever he disowned a specific work. His most famous use was when Bird was listed as the creator of the TV show, “The Starlost.”

Some pen-names were used for collaborations. Examples include Eando Binder (Ed and Otto Binder), Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner and his wife, Catherine Moore), Robert Randall (Robert Silverberg and Randall Garrett), and Edson McCann (Lester del Rey and Fred Pohl)

Some authors used pen-names exclusively, like William Tenn (Philip Klass), Cordwainer Smith (Paul A.M. Linebarger) and James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon). The reason for this is that they had already established non-SF careers (Linebarger was an Asian policy advisor in Washington, Sheldon a clinical psychologist), and didn’t want their writing to interfere with their chosen profession.

My favorite is Philip Jose Farmer who, when suffering from writer’s block, would pick a pen-name and start writing under that. He’s written as Kilgore Trout, Jonathan Swift Sommers III, Leo Queequeg Tincrowder, Rod Keen, Paul Chapin, and others.

I couldn’t find an on-line listing of pen-names, but I have a nagging memory that a book of this information exists somewhere. Wish I could remember more.

6

Asimov wrote the Lucky Starr series under the name Paul French, because the original plan was to make them into a TV series, and he didn’t want to be attached to it if it flopped. The Illustrated Dirty Old Man was written under the name Dr. A, but that was pretty much just a joke, and was widely-known from the outset. He also wanted to publish “The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline” under a pseudonym, since he was working on his doctoral thesis at the time, and was afraid that his committee would see it and not be amused, but due to a glitch, it was published under his real name, and it was just as well… his comittee was, in fact, amused. Other than that, no pseudonyms… His ego wouldn’t allow it.

I’m pretty sure that Heinlein had another pseudonym or two that he used rarely (for instance, he wrote a couple of stories for girls under a pseudonym), but I can’t remember any of them. As of Sunday, I’ll have my copy of The Encyclopædia of Science Fiction, and I’ll be able to look all this stuff up, if you’re still interested.

7

Don’t forget Andre Norton – though I do not recall her “real” name.

8

The book which takes the premise that Adolph Hitler became an sf writer (something he supposedly got into from his position as illustrator) was The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad. An interesting concept, but it was published by Spinrad under his own name.
There are a LOT of pseudonyms in sf. I think you can find an entry on it in The Science Fiction Encyclopedia, which in any case gives a lot of pseudonyms. Here are a couple off the top of my head:

Hal Clement = Harry Clement Stubbs in real life
William Tenn = Philip Klass (but not the UFO debunker)
Cordwainer Smith = (Damn! Can’t emember right now! I’ll come to me.)
James Tiptree, Jr. is a woman, but I can’t recall her name, either.

9

I think you’re right about a second Heinlein pseudonym. “Robert Anson” springs to mind.

Thanks lots for the tips. It’s always fun to look for off-key names at the used book store.

10

Neal Stephenson has written a few as Stephen Bury.

11

The minimum pseudonym:

C.J. Cherryh’s real name is C.J. Cherry. (I don’t know what the C.J. stands for)

She added the h as a pseudopseudonym because her initial editor thought ‘Cherry’ sounded like a romance novelist.

12

Has to be E A Crowley with 150 pseudonyms!

For a good guide to everyone else, try http://www.trussel.com/books/topten.htm

13

There are many reasons why SF writers choose pseudonyms.

  1. They don’t want their real identity known: Cordwainer Smith (Paul Linebarger), James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon), Hal Clement.

  2. They have two stories in one magazine, which was considered bad form. (Herb Boehm for John Varley, Anson Macdonald, etc.)

  3. Some old magazines had “house names,” which several authors used. The most famous of these was Alexander Blade.

  4. The names are assigned to the author because their editor didn’t like it. Thus Lawrence Evans became Lawrence Watt-Evans, Michael McDowell became Michael Kube-McDowell, Carolyn J. Cherry became C.J. Cherryh. When Harry Turtledove began writing, his editor didn’t think anyone would believe his name was real, so his early work was by Eric G. Iverson.

  5. Their real name was too “foreign” to sell well. Somtow P. Sutchuritkul wrote horror as S.P. Somtow. Nicholas Yermankov wrote as “Simon Hawke.” R. Garcia y Robertson sometimes uses “Rob Garcia.”

  6. The chain booksellers buy books by author’s name. If your book doesn’t sell well, they cut their orders for that name, and even stop buying altogether. (Cutting the orders, of course, helps ensure the book will sell badly, so they cut it the next time, and so forth.) “Robin Hobb” is the pseudonym of Meghan Lindholm, a fine writer who got caught in the squeeze.

  7. Similarly, if you’re selling well, and write a book that, though good, isn’t going to hit your usual high sales level, you can use a pseudonym to keep the chains from cutting back on your popular books. Harry Turtledove recently publised Justinian as “H.N. Turtletaub” for this reason.

  8. As a joke. Someone (maybe George Alec Effinger) did a bunch of parodies of specific SF authors. They were written as by Rbrt Hnln, or S**C Smv. Effinger also did some parodies as O. Niemand – from O. Henry.

  9. Collaborations. In addition to those mentioned, there was “Thom Demijohn” (Tom Disch and John Sladek).

14

Harlan Ellison sometimes used the name “Ellis Hart” for RealityChuck’s reason 2. In fact, I have an issue of a 50s magazine in which this happened. He might have used other pen names as well.

15

Some corrections and additions:

Barry Malzberg is not a pseudonym.

Alice Sheldon used Tiptree as a pseudonym not so much because it would affect her career, but because she didn’t want readers to think of her as a woman. This made the stories more surprising given the feminist nature of her writing.

Andre Norton was originally a pseudonym (for Alice Mary Norton), but eventually she decided she liked the name so much that she had her name legally changed to it.

Megan Lindholm published her first few novels under her real name. She was diligent about editing them and gained some critical recognition, but her books weren’t selling well. She decided to quit editing her books and just publish the usual overblown fantasy doorstops under the name Robin Hobb. They now sell much better.

Hal Clement never hid his real identity. He just decided to use his real name for his science articles and his pseudonym for his stories.

Theodore Sturgeon was born Edward Hamilton Waldo, but he eventually took the name Theodore Sturgeon (using his stepfather’s last name) for both his pseudonym and his legal name.

Get The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, edited by John Clute and Peter Nicholls. It will answer all your questions.

16

Actually, “Stephen Bury” is the name used by Neal Stephenson when he is collaborating with (I believe) his uncle (whose name I cannot recall).

17

Actually, I don’t think I made that last post quite clear. I didn’t intend for it to read as if the name “Stephen Bury” was used along with his uncle’s name on the covers of the books. Stephen Bury is the sole name that appears on the cover of the book, and it is intended to represent both Neal Stephenson and his uncle.

18

Additional reasons occurred to me:

  1. Sometimes an established writer has another writer ghostwrite his work. Ellery Queen (a pseudonym of two collaborators) had novels that were actually written by Theodore Sturgeon (The Player on the Other Side), Avram Davidson (And On the Eighth Day), and Jack Vance (several titles, but unlike the others mentioned here, none featuring the detective Ellery Queen). V. C. Andrews died several years ago, but her estate hires writers to write novels under that name (now trademarked). And several Lester del Rey novels were written by another writer (Paul Fairchild?) when Del Rey was suffering from writer’s block, though Del Rey did give the ghost an outline and direction for what he wanted.

  2. Metafictional conceits. Pat Murphy is currently collaborating with “Max Merriwell” – herself – on a series of three novels. “Max Merriwell” also has a pseudonym “Mary Maxwell.” “They’ve” written There and Back Again (by Murphy and Max Merriwell) and Wild Angel (by Murphy, Merriwell, and Maxwell). The third novel in the group (from what I understand, Murphy writing about Merriwell writing the first two books, including the one as Maxwell) will probably come out by the end of the year. (Confused yet? :))

19

Just to clarify a post a bit upstream:

George Alec Effinger uses the O. Niemand story to write in the style and manner of writers who NEVER wrote science fiction. They are not parodies. They are attempts to imagine the sort of science fiction these authors (the first was modeled after Damon Runyon, then Ring Lardner, etc.) The model writers are all deceased American short story writer. O. Niemand, as a pseudonym, was chosen for O for zero) and Niemand, which is German for “nobody.” Originally, the idea was to disguise the author’s name, sex, race, and age, so that the reader’s attention would be on how accurate or inaccurate the pastiche was (I don’t like “pastiche,” either).

The Hemingway story was the easiest–anyone can do Hemingway. The most difficult was the Steinbeck. He doesn’t have such a unique voice, or repeated words and phrases. The O. Niemand story tried to capture the sense of place and character instead.

As for pseudonyms in general, it’s hard to think of many genre writers who DON’T have at least one. You’d be surprised by how many authors are, say, Mike Resnick or Sandor Courane.

(signed) “That which we call a rose may be just a good CGI”

20

Well, yes.

But the point I’m confused on is a minor one.

Are the MM’s established pseudonyms for Murphy before she set out on this series (a la Steven King/Richard Bachman doing Desperation/The Regulators), characters in the series (as your synopsis of the third book implies), or what?