Ben Harrison Orkow (1896-1988) was an American screenplay, theatre, and science fiction writer of Russian descent. He was professionally known as either B. Harrison Orkow or Ben Orkow.
Orkow was born on January 9 1896 in Korňa, Austria-Hungary, now in Slovakia, to Abe and Anita Orkow. He moved to the United States in 1906 and was educated privately to the equivalent of a university degree. [1]
Orkow married his first wife actress Vera "Viva" Tattersall in 1921. [2] They divorced in the late 1920s. [3] He was then married to Evelyne Arends, who sued for divorce in 1930. [4] He later married Ruby Jewel Dreyer [5] with whom he had a child, Miriam Orkow Biro. [6] Orkow died at the age of 92 died on December 11 1988 in Reno, Nevada. [7]
Orkow was the author of a number of plays produced on Broadway; among his credits are 16 screenplays for major movie studies and 20 television dramas. [8]
One of the plays he wrote is The First Actress, in which Felicia, a theatre enthusiast, disguises herself as a man to sneak into the theatre group of William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage. Women were banned at that time from acting in the theatre - which leads to the expected complications. At a performance in the presence of Queen Elizabeth I everything comes out at the end, but Felicia is forgiven. [9] The plot is very reminiscent of that of Shakespeare in Love (1998).
His first science fiction novel When Time Stood Still, which was published by Signet in 1962. It is about a millionaire and his terminally ill wife who travel to the future of 2007, where it is possible to cure the woman's disease. The book has been translated into a number of languages including Italian and German.
John Thomas Sladek was an American science fiction author, known for his satirical and surreal novels.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1987.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1977.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1964.
Alexei Panshin was an American writer and science fiction critic. He wrote several critical works and several novels, including the 1968 Nebula Award–winning novel Rite of Passage and, with his wife Cory Panshin, the 1990 Hugo Award–winning study of science fiction The World Beyond the Hill.
John Frederick Clute is a Canadian-born author and critic specializing in science fiction and fantasy literature who has lived in both England and the United States since 1969. He has been described as "an integral part of science fiction's history" and "perhaps the foremost reader-critic of science fiction in our time, and one of the best the genre has ever known." He was one of eight people who founded the English magazine Interzone in 1982.
Edmund Cooper was an English poet and prolific writer of speculative fiction, romances, technical essays, several detective stories, and a children's book. These were published under his own name and several pen names.
The Borgo Press was a small publishing company founded by Robert Reginald in 1975 funded by the royalties gained from his first major reference work, Stella Nova: the contemporary science fiction authors (1970).
Colin Greenland is a British science fiction writer, whose first story won the second prize in a 1982 Faber & Faber competition. His best-known novel is Take Back Plenty (1990), winner of both major British science fiction awards, the 1990 British SF Association award and the 1991 Arthur C. Clarke Award, as well as being a nominee for the 1992 Philip K. Dick Award for the best original paperback published that year in the United States.
Beyond Apollo is a science fiction novel by American writer Barry N. Malzberg, first published in 1972 in a hardcover edition by Random House. Malzberg credits the inspiration for the novel to "I Have My Vigil", a 1969 short story by fellow science fiction writer Harry Harrison.
Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System, has appeared in works of fiction across several centuries. The way the planet has been depicted has evolved as more has become known about its composition; it was initially portrayed as being entirely solid, later as having a high-pressure atmosphere with a solid surface underneath, and finally as being entirely gaseous. It was a popular setting during the pulp era of science fiction. Life on the planet has variously been depicted as identical to humans, larger versions of humans, and non-human. Non-human life on Jupiter has been portrayed as primitive in some works and more advanced than humans in others.
Saturn has made appearances in fiction since the 1752 novel Micromégas by Voltaire. In the earliest depictions, it was portrayed as having a solid surface rather than its actual gaseous composition. In many of these works, the planet is inhabited by aliens that are usually portrayed as being more advanced than humans. In modern science fiction, the Saturnian atmosphere sometimes hosts floating settlements. The planet is occasionally visited by humans and its rings are sometimes mined for resources.
Asteroids have appeared in fiction since at least the late 1800s, the first one—Ceres—having been discovered in 1801. They were initially only used infrequently as writers preferred the planets as settings. The once-popular Phaëton hypothesis, which states that the asteroid belt consists of the remnants of the former fifth planet that existed in an orbit between Mars and Jupiter before somehow being destroyed, has been a recurring theme with various explanations for the planet's destruction proposed. This hypothetical former planet is in science fiction often called "Bodia" in reference to Johann Elert Bode, for whom the since-discredited Titius–Bode law that predicts the planet's existence is named.
In science fiction, a time viewer, temporal viewer, or chronoscope is a device that allows another point in time to be observed. The concept has appeared since the late 19th century, constituting a significant yet relatively obscure subgenre of time travel fiction and appearing in various media including literature, cinema, and television. Stories usually explain the technology by referencing cutting-edge science, though sometimes invoking the supernatural instead. Most commonly only the past can be observed, though occasionally time viewers capable of showing the future appear; these devices are sometimes limited in terms of what information about the future can be obtained. Other variations on the concept include being able to listen to the past but not view it.
Hans Joachim Alpers was a German writer and editor of science fiction and fantasy. Together with Werner Fuchs and Ulrich Kiesow he founded Fantasy Productions, which became one of the premier German RPG- and board game producers and retailers. He was born in Bremerhaven.
Ernest Hill was an English science fiction author and advertisement manager who was active as a writer from the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s.
Hans Gerhard Franciskowsky was a German author of popular fiction, notably science fiction, and radio dramas. He wrote pseudonymously, most often as H. G. Francis, or as Hans G. Francis, H. G. Francisco, Gunther Frank, Peter Bars, R. C. Quoos-Raabe, Frank Sky, Hans G. Stelling or Ted Scott.
Gerhard Branstner was a German writer.
John Michael Sharkey was an American writer who published over eighty plays, many under pen names.
Gabriel Bermúdez Castillo was a Spanish writer and important author in Spanish science fiction.