# What's This Sci-Fi Book Series? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 22, 2000, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-sci-fi-book-series/37868 "2000-10-22T10:46:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2000, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-sci-fi-book-series/37868/41 "2000-10-23T18:13:25Z")
To be fair, a lot of us made guesses before the additional information that the quote was from 1976 was added (which eliminates most of my first thoughts). Since it was in a forward, it wouldn’t neccesarily be of the same vintage as the initial publication of the book, though I’ll admit I didn’t look up the publication date of CCS before guessing. I DO seem to remember hearing this one. I think it falls more into the category of Robinson vectoring an urban legend than deliberately pulling our leg. If true, it may very well apply to some genre fiction writer outside SF&F, and mutated to “an SF writer” either explicitely or by inference as it circulated SF conventions. It may very well be circulating attached erroniously to several authors - Robinson may think he knows who, and be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2000, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-sci-fi-book-series/37868/42 "2000-10-23T18:39:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dtilque \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by Fenris \* > > Ater a bit of research, E.C. Tubb (who has about 3 billion pseudonyms) was apparently still alive and well as of mid 2000. (And, as of 1978, only had about 16-18 Dumarest of Terra books). Ergo, it’s not Tubb. > > Well, you have to admit that this was a better guess than most in this thread. > > I’m trying to think of what large series were occupying the bookstore shelves in the mid-70s, and all I can think of are the Perry Rhodan books. But if I understand correctly, these were originally in German and written by several different writers, like the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books. And there were lots more than a couple dozen, more like a hundred or so. > \*\* Tubb was a good guess. Couldn’t be Perry Rhodan (another good guess, though). for the reasons you name. A bit more detail, though: PR was (and still is, at roughly 2000 issues!!) published in Germany in a pamphlet that looks kind of like um…Penthouse Letters or Soap Opera digest (imagine a short, 5"x7" comic book, with words only) and is published weekly. Each episode is only part of a story and is about 60-75 pages long. (Story arcs can run for 50-100 issues and there are some uber-story-arcs that run for hundreds of issues). ## No matter how you define “books”, each Perry Rhodan issue doesn’t fit the definition. ## Another thought might be the Doc Savage or The Shadow, or The Avenger, or any of those other pulp-era hero stuff, but again, I’m pretty sure they, like Perry Rhodan, had multiple authors (I _know_ Kenneth Robeson is a ‘house name’) The prime possiblity at the moment for me is Edmund Hamilton’s Captain Future stuff. There were 20 Captain Future novels and 7 novelettes. I’ve never read Captain Future, so I have no idea if they’re schlock or not, but other stuff by Hamilton that I have read isn’t bad at all, if you don’t mind pure pulp adventure. As an aside, Hamilton also wrote a bunch of old Adventure Comics, Legion of Super Heroes stories (roughly from #306-345)I’ve read these and they’re pretty good! Hamilton died in Feb, 1977, so the “estate” quote may fit, depending on when, exactly, Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon was published. And Hamilton apparently had a reputation for being a heck of a nice guy, adding one more reason Robinson wouldn’t want to sully Hamilton’s rep. (For more info on Captain Future, go here: [http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/1128/insidecf.html](http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/1128/insidecf.html) ) Has anyone actually read Captain Future? Could this be it? Fenris ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2000, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-sci-fi-book-series/37868/43 "2000-10-23T22:12:57Z")
Note that having multiple authors doesn’t preclude something - “The public demanded better than two dozen sequels” doesn’t say that the original author wrote all the sequels. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2000, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-sci-fi-book-series/37868/44 "2000-10-23T22:56:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Fenris \* > Each episode [of Perry Rhodan] is only part of a story and is about 60-75 pages long. (Story arcs can run for 50-100 issues and there are some uber-story-arcs that run for hundreds of issues). The editions I remember seeing were about 180-200 pages, so they probably combined 3 issues together in these versions. Never read any of them, though. I’m amazed they are still being published. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-sci-fi-book-series/37868/45 "2000-10-24T00:43:27Z")
I can neither conclusively confirm nor deny that it’s Hamilton and _Captain Future_. The encyclopedia doesn’t mention this annecdote, but neither is there anything to rule it out. It does mention that “The original idea for _Captain Future_ had come from Mort Weisinger, a senior editor with the Standard Magazines group”. Make of that what you will. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-sci-fi-book-series/37868/46 "2000-10-24T01:29:03Z")
Rats. I was really hoping it was L. Ron Hubbard. I have been permanently emotionally scarred by exposure to his drivel. They were that bad. But it’s true that he considered his writing to be the greatest thing ever to happen to mankind. Read the intro to the first Mission Earth book sometime (and then stop!!!), where he discusses the history of satire from the Greeks on up through modern times. It sounds like he truly believed his books would change the universe. Wacko. Oh, and **Chronos** - you must read the Doc Smith books. They’re the only books I’ve ever read where the spaceship navigator whips out his slide rule to plot their course. And you have to admire anyone who gets around the speed of light issue by saying “It was just a theory.” That takes guts. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-sci-fi-book-series/37868/47 "2000-10-24T02:48:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Smeghead \* > \*\*Oh, and **Chronos** - you must read the Doc Smith books. They’re the only books I’ve ever read where the spaceship navigator whips out his slide rule to plot their course. And you have to admire anyone who gets around the speed of light issue by saying “It was just a theory.” That takes guts. \*\* I agree with Smeghead’s assessment of Doc Smith’s books. Wonderful "to hell with the rules, this is _storytelling_ pulp action. And Smeghead, if you enjoy spaceship navigators plotting hyperdimensional FTL courses on their slide-rules, you _must_ read Heinlein’s Starman Jones. Great stuff! Fenris ---
**Author:** ![Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19adc/32.png) [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-sci-fi-book-series/37868/48 "2000-10-24T10:04:19Z")
spider’s in toronto this week for a writer’s festival. Somebody corner him! (or I’ll nail him if I ever see him walking down the street in Vancouver.) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-sci-fi-book-series/37868/49 "2000-10-24T11:52:45Z")
I don’t think any of the guesses here qualify. I suspect the story’s not true, myself. BUT… if you’re looking for a “science fiction” author who wrote a huge number of truly abysmal books, look no further than Pel Torro. He wrote under a number of pseudonyms, wrote literally dozens of books, and I’m pretty sure he’s dead. He wrote his books to the word count, not to trivial considerations like characterization and plot. If he found he was falling short, he’d whip out a thesaurus and cram in a lot of synomyms to up the count. If you want a real laugh, look up his book “Galaxy 666”, the closing pages of which read more like Roget than any sort of fiction. You can have the literary equivalent of MST3K reading this with friends. Pel Torro is INFINITELY worse than anyone yet mentioned in this thread (and I include L Ron in that). Jack Chalker and company named the space ship the “Pel Torro” in their collaborative novel “The Red Tape Wars”. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-sci-fi-book-series/37868/50 "2000-10-24T12:27:23Z")
Pel Torro was one of the many pseudonyms of R. L. Fanthorpe. He’s a British writer (born 1935, and still alive) who at one point was incredibly prolific. His home page can be found at the following URL: [http://www.lionel-fanthorpe.com](http://www.lionel-fanthorpe.com) Fanthorpe doesn’t really fit the story either. There was a pulp publisher named Badger Books that desperately needed material for its books and magazines. They discovered that Fanthorpe was capable of turning out fiction incredibly fast, so rather than go through the bother of having to read slush piles in hope of finding acceptable stories and novels, they made an agreement with Fanthorpe. They agreed that they would buy anything he wrote. He could turn out the equivalent of thirty novels a year - and do it part-time while working full-time as a schoolteacher. For several years he supplied most of what Badger published. Fanthorpe is still alive, his stories and novels weren’t connected into a series, he didn’t make a bet with someone that he could get a bad novel published, and there were no fans clamoring for sequels to his novels, so he can’t be the subject of the story either. May I make a suggestion that everyone in this thread get a copy of _The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction_, edited by John Clute and Peter Nicholls? It will answer all your research questions. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-sci-fi-book-series/37868/51 "2000-10-24T12:37:16Z")
Wendell: I’ve got the Encyclopedia, although not here at my office. If you read my post carefully you’ll note that I prefaced it by saying that a.) I didn’t believe the story in the OP and b.) didn’t think that Torro fit it. But he’s still the closest fit overall. And he is awful. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-sci-fi-book-series/37868/52 "2000-10-24T13:54:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CalMeacham \* > \*\*Wendell: > > I’ve got the Encyclopedia, although not here at my office. If you read my post carefully you’ll note that I prefaced it by saying that a.) I didn’t believe the story in the OP and b.) didn’t think that Torro fit it. But he’s still the closest fit overall. And he is awful. \*\* Wendell, I have the S.F. Encyclopedia too. Anyway, I disagree, Cal. Fanthorpe (aka Torro) _is_ awful (I’ve read excerpts), but he doesn’t fit the OP on three counts: 1. He didn’t write a series (he wrote like 200 singletons though) 2. He’s still alive as of today. 3. He didn’t have a fan following at the time (since most of what he wrote was under pseudonyms) although, apparently he does now. He even has a “fan” page [http://www.teleport.com/~gumball/fanthorpe.htm](http://www.teleport.com/~gumball/fanthorpe.htm) (which has a quote generator which produced these gems: “Dan was the kind of man to whom panic and fear were as alien and foreign as green spotted pseudopods. Formula 29X Writing as Pel Torro” and ## “When he awoke it was pitch dark, dark as the pit, dark as the tomb, dark as the grave. A thick, black velvet darkness that seemed almost tangible in its intensity. The kind of darkness that got into the pores of your nose… Orbit One Writing as John E. Muller”) Anyway, I’m still sticking to the Edmund Hamilton/Captain Future theory which fits all of the above criteria, plus Captain Future was incredibly popular for a while. I believe the anecdote, btw. At the time that Callahan’s was written, Robinson was one of the premier SF reviewers at the time (His column had the wonderful title: “Spider vs. the Hax of Sol III”). I don’t think Robinson would have vectored an urban legend as fact. Robinson, in his articles, was always careful about distinguishing legend and heresay from fact. Fenris ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-sci-fi-book-series/37868/53 "2000-10-24T14:35:26Z")
My apologies, CalMeacham, for a post that came out more belligerent than it was supposed to. I realize that you didn’t mean to say that the story applied to Fanthorpe. The remark about getting a copy of the Encyclopedia was addressed to everybody, not to you specifically. Sorry about my exasperation, but some of the guesses on this thread have just been so silly that I had to say something. I’ll have to do some research into Hamilton before I can say anything about him. ---
**Author:** ![G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c67d28/32.png) [@G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G.B.H.Hornswoggler)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-sci-fi-book-series/37868/54 "2000-10-24T15:03:55Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Ankh\_Too \* > I’m pretty sure it’s the Gor Books by John Norman. Not only did he cave in and write sequels, but after he died, others continued the parade of excrement._\* Two points: 1. John Norman was not forced to write the Gor books; they were a natural expression of his thoughts on male-female relationships (for what that’s worth). 2. Norman isn’t dead, and no one else has written (official) Gor books. I know there is a sizable S&M Gor fandom, so there’s probably a mass of fan-fiction, but that’s not the same thing. (This has been sort-of covered in between, but I wanted to make these points clear.) ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-sci-fi-book-series/37868/55 "2000-10-24T15:24:32Z")
I’m having trouble finding documentation on this, but perhaps I can jog someone else’s memory. I once read an article about some hack who has written over _four hundred_ novels. He keeps a file cabinet full of character profiles and a cabinet full of plot twists, subdivided by genre. When it’s time to write a book, he can grab a handful of character files and a handful of plot twists and barf out a romance novel in two weeks. Anyway, I vaguely recall that the author was hired to produce a Dark Shadows novel in the late 60s or early 70s. The guy never saw the television show, didn’t speak with the writers, and basically didn’t care what he wrote as long as he had it done in a month. To everyone’s suprise, the book became a suprise hit. In less than two years, the guy pumped out over twenty of 'em. I’m having trouble identifying who this fellow is because he always uses a pseudonym (often female ones) and there is a new series of DS novels coming out that keeps ringing the search engine’s chimes. The article I recall may have appeared in the Washington Post in the late 1980’s. I warn you that I’m certain some of the above details will be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-sci-fi-book-series/37868/56 "2000-10-24T15:33:19Z")
It might also be worth pointing out that Spider’s reference to “his estate” might also refer to an author using multiple pseudonyms. The “estate” is the panoply of names used for the various genres. That would be a clever way of implying a person is dead when in fact he is alive and slaving for Harlequin, which more like being undead. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-sci-fi-book-series/37868/57 "2000-10-24T15:49:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sofa King \* > \*\*I’m having trouble finding documentation on this, but perhaps I can jog someone else’s memory. > > I once read an article about some hack who has written over _four hundred_ novels. He keeps a file cabinet full of character profiles and a cabinet full of plot twists, subdivided by genre. When it’s time to write a book, he can grab a handful of character files and a handful of plot twists and barf out a romance novel in two weeks. > > Anyway, I vaguely recall that the author was hired to produce a Dark Shadows novel in the late 60s or early 70s. The guy never saw the television show, didn’t speak with the writers, and basically didn’t care what he wrote as long as he had it done in a month. To everyone’s suprise, the book became a suprise hit. In less than two years, the guy pumped out over twenty of 'em. > > I’m having trouble identifying who this fellow is because he always uses a pseudonym (often female ones) and there is a new series of DS novels coming out that keeps ringing the search engine’s chimes. The article I recall may have appeared in the Washington Post in the late 1980’s. > > I warn you that I’m certain some of the above details will be wrong. \*\* I’m pretty sure that you’re mixing two people: the guy who kept file cabinets full of notes with hundreds of novels is most likely the aforementioned Fanthorpe. The guy (witht the female pseudonym) who wrote the DARK SHADOWS books was Dan (Marilyn) Ross [http://www.e-ink.com/darkshadows/ds\_paperbacks.htm](http://www.e-ink.com/darkshadows/ds_paperbacks.htm) . I can’t find anything else about the guy, though. Fenris ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-sci-fi-book-series/37868/58 "2000-10-24T15:57:37Z")
Fenris et al: I again note that, as I said, Pel Torro/Fanshawe doesn’t fit the profile, which is why I noted that I didn’t think the Legend referred to him. I only noted that he was the closest match I knew of, based mainly on the fact that his stuff is so bad, and because he was one of the few writers who had turned out literally dozens of books. But Edmund Hamilton? I admit I haven’t read much of his stuff, but he’s regarded as one of the lights of the pre-Golden Age. Ballantine Books even devoted one of their “Best of …” collections to him. Still, I admit that his uncollected stuff may be terrible (and that might be why it’s uncollected). I’ve never read any Captain Future. Contemplating Pel Torro is enough to seriously annoy you, if you’re an aspiring author. It brings out the Antonio Salieri in you. “Dear God, why must this thesaurus be the instrument of Your Glory, and not me?” ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-sci-fi-book-series/37868/59 "2000-10-24T16:45:55Z")
Fenris, “Dan” Ross is definitely the guy I read about: aka Leslie Ames aka Ellen Randolph aka Jane Rossiter aka Clarissa Ross aka Marilyn Carter aka Rose Dana aka Miriam Leslie aka Marilyn Ross aka Ruth Dorset aka Diana Randall aka Dana Ross aka W. E. D. Ross aka Ann Gilmor aka Rose Williams However, I distinctly recall the file cabinet method being mentioned in the same article. I suppose he might have done a similar thing as did Fanthorpe. The Dark Shadows series has the advantages of contemporary placement and the proper level of success, but after reading up on it, I’m not convinced this is Spider’s reference. I still think Spider’s hint that the author was deceased in 1976 is a red herring. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-sci-fi-book-series/37868.md?page=2)