Steven L. Thompson | |
|---|---|
 Thompson in 1971, aboard his racing motorcycle | |
| Born | Steven Lynn Thompson May 27, 1948 San Antonio, Texas |
| Occupation | Author, journalist |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | UC Berkeley |
| Genre | Motorcycling; Cold War fiction |
| Notable works | The Wild Blue |
| Notable awards | Maggie Award, 1986 [1] |
| Spouse |
|
Steven Lynn Thompson (born 1948) is an author, magazine journalist, historian of technology and former motorcycle racer.
Thompson was born May 27, 1948, at Ft. Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas, to career US Air Force pilot Major Ray Lynn Thompson (1921–1991) and his wife, Velma Mildred Thompson (1923–1991). [2] He holds a BA in History from the University of California, Berkeley [3] and served in the US Air Force from 1968 to 1972. [2]
As an author, Thompson wrote five Cold War thrillers during the 1980s (Recovery, Countdown to China, Bismarck Cross, Airburst and Top End), in which he explored such themes as the role of the US Military Liaison Mission in Potsdam, East Germany, in both clandestine intelligence gathering and in resolving East-West tensions, as well as the reunification of East and West Germany, the coming of the Islamic Jihad to the United States via general aviation aircraft used for terror, and the consequences of contracting to private companies the role of coastal surveillance. The 1988 movie Honor Bound , directed by Jeannot Szwarc and starring Tom Skerritt, was based on Recovery, but not released in the United States after audience previews.[ citation needed ] In 1985, Thompson invited Walter J. Boyne, then Director of the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum and a columnist for AOPA Pilot at Thompson’s request, to join him in co-authoring a social history of the United States Air Force. Boyne had completed a career in the Air Force and Thompson had been born and bred in the service, as well as serving in it during the Viet Nam war. Boyne subsequently agreed to co-author the book but argued that it should be fiction, and it was sold to Crown Publishers in 1985 by Thompson’s literary agent, Jacques de Spoelberch, who represented both authors. Published in 1986 in hardback, the resulting novel, The Wild Blue: The Novel of the U.S. Air Force , became a national best-seller. [4] The Aviation/Space Writers Association awarded Boyne and Thompson its 1986 Journalism Award for fiction in aviation books for the novel.
Thompson's 2008 book Bodies in Motion: Evolution and Experience in Motorcycling, published by Aero Design and Manufacturing, was described by author Melissa Holbrook Pierson as "the most important book ever written on the subject" of motorcycling, [5] and is recommended reading in the Idiot's Guide series. [6] In it, Thompson investigates the psychology of motorcycle riding and "what our vehicles of automobility do to, and not just for, their operators," [7] through the lens of evolutionary biology and psychology. For the book, he also commissioned the Stanford University Smart Products Design Lab to test nine motorcycles for their unique vibration signatures in an attempt to quantify the differences described by enthusiasts. Bodies in Motion received reviews in academic journals. [8] [9]
During Thompson's career in magazines, he helped set circulation records at every publication he directed as editor-in-chief, editorial director, or executive editor,[ citation needed ] and as a consultant, he redesigned both Autoweek in 1986 and Cycle Guide in 1978. [10] He wrote hundreds of editorial columns and features for the magazines he edited, including a monthly column for AutoWeek called "At Large" from 1994 to 2008, [11] and a monthly column also called "At Large" for Cycle World from 1986 to 1991; his 1986 "At Large" column entitled "Talking Tees" was awarded a "Maggie Award for Excellence" by the Western Publications Association. [1] Also, his "At Large" column "Silver Wing for a Silver Eagle", from the April, 1989 Cycle World, was selected for inclusion in The Devil Can Ride: The World's Best Motorcycle Writing, (Lee Klancher, ed.), p. 260. [12] At the publisher's request, Thompson also authorized Urban Moto Magazine to reprint some of his Cycle World "At Large" columns. [13]
As a historian, Thompson wrote essay reviews [14] and reviewed books for the Society for the History of Technology's journal, Technology & Culture, [15] and was named an Advisory Editor for the journal. He also published historical-analysis articles in Air & Space/Smithsonian, for which he was a consulting, and later a contributing editor, as well as in American Heritage of Invention & Technology , [16] and in automotive, aviation and motorcycle special-interest publications.
As a motorcycle racer, Thompson competed in the US, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. [17] He also competed three times in the Isle of Man; in the 1970 and 1971 Manx Grands Prix, he was unable to start the Junior (350cc) race on his Shepherd-Kawasaki because of machine failures in practice and qualifying. In 1987, racing as the sole rider for Team Cycle World, [18] he entered the Formula One [19] and 750 Production TT [20] races in May–June, and completed both races, lapping in the 750 Production race at 101.2 mph, making him the first American journalist and fourth American professional racer to have lapped the TT course at over "the ton"—100 mph. [17]
Thompson also was a member of Team Cycle World's successful attempts in 1985 to set new World Speed Records on standard US-specification Suzuki GSX-R750s at the Uniroyal tire-proving course in Laredo, Texas. [21] Two motorcycles were used, and Thompson rode both in the shorter-duration classification and the 24-hour event, in the process being awarded, with the rest of the team, 6, 12, and 24-hour FIM World Speed Records.
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Jerry Eugene Pournelle was an American scientist in the area of operations research and human factors research, a science fiction writer, essayist, journalist, and one of the first bloggers. In the 1960s and early 1970s, he worked in the aerospace industry, but eventually focused on his writing career. In an obituary in Gizmodo, he is described as "a tireless ambassador for the future."
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published in Boston from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by a French-Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break into the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L. Gold, who rapidly made Galaxy the leading science fiction magazine of its time, focusing on stories about social issues rather than technology.
If was an American science fiction magazine launched in March 1952 by Quinn Publications, owned by James L. Quinn.
Amazing Stories is an American science fiction magazine launched in April 1926 by Hugo Gernsback's Experimenter Publishing. It was the first magazine devoted solely to science fiction. Science fiction stories had made regular appearances in other magazines, including some published by Gernsback, but Amazing helped define and launch a new genre of pulp fiction.
Asimov's Science Fiction is an American science fiction magazine edited by Sheila Williams and published by Dell Magazines, which is owned by Penny Press. It was launched as a quarterly by Davis Publications in 1977, after obtaining Isaac Asimov's consent for the use of his name. It was originally titled Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and was quickly successful, reaching a circulation of over 100,000 within a year, and switching to monthly publication within a couple of years. George H. Scithers, the first editor, published many new writers who went on to be successful in the genre. Scithers favored traditional stories without sex or obscenity; along with frequent humorous stories, this gave Asimov's a reputation for printing juvenile fiction, despite its success. Asimov was not part of the editorial team, but wrote editorials for the magazine.
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is a U.S. fantasy and science fiction magazine, first published in 1949 by Mystery House, a subsidiary of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Press. Editors Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas had approached Spivak in the mid-1940s about creating a fantasy companion to Spivak's existing mystery title, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. The first issue was titled The Magazine of Fantasy, but the decision was quickly made to include science fiction as well as fantasy, and the title was changed correspondingly with the second issue. F&SF was quite different in presentation from the existing science fiction magazines of the day, most of which were in pulp format: it had no interior illustrations, no letter column, and text in a single-column format, which in the opinion of science fiction historian Mike Ashley "set F&SF apart, giving it the air and authority of a superior magazine".
David Rowland Langford is a British author, editor, and critic, largely active within the science fiction field. He publishes the science fiction fanzine and newsletter Ansible and holds the all-time record for most Hugo Awards, with a total of 29 wins.
Planet Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published by Fiction House between 1939 and 1955. It featured interplanetary adventures, both in space and on some other planets, and was initially focused on a young readership. Malcolm Reiss was editor or editor-in-chief for all of its 71 issues. Planet Stories was launched at the same time as Planet Comics, the success of which probably helped to fund the early issues of Planet Stories. Planet Stories did not pay well enough to regularly attract the leading science fiction writers of the day, but occasionally obtained work from well-known authors, including Isaac Asimov and Clifford D. Simak. In 1952 Planet Stories published Philip K. Dick's first sale, and printed four more of his stories over the next three years.
Wonder Stories was an early American science fiction magazine which was published under several titles from 1929 to 1955. It was founded by Hugo Gernsback in 1929 after he had lost control of his first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, when his media company Experimenter Publishing went bankrupt. Within a few months of the bankruptcy, Gernsback launched three new magazines: Air Wonder Stories, Science Wonder Stories, and Science Wonder Quarterly.
Imagination was an American fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in October 1950 by Raymond Palmer's Clark Publishing Company. The magazine was sold almost immediately to Greenleaf Publishing Company, owned by William Hamling, who published and edited it from the third issue, February 1951, for the rest of the magazine's life. Hamling launched a sister magazine, Imaginative Tales, in 1954; both ceased publication at the end of 1958 in the aftermath of major changes in US magazine distribution due to the liquidation of American News Company.
Venture Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, first published from 1957 to 1958, and revived for a brief run in 1969 and 1970. Ten issues were published of the 1950s version, with another six in the second run. It was founded in both instances as a companion to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Robert P. Mills edited the 1950s version, and Edward L. Ferman was editor during the second run. A British edition appeared for 28 issues between 1963 and 1965; it reprinted material from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction as well as from the US edition of Venture. There was also an Australian edition, which was identical to the British version but dated two months later.
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Science-Fiction Plus was an American science fiction magazine published by Hugo Gernsback for seven issues in 1953. In 1926, Gernsback had launched Amazing Stories, the first science fiction magazine, but he had not been involved in the genre since 1936, when he sold Wonder Stories. Science-Fiction Plus was initially in slick format, meaning that it was large-size and printed on glossy paper. Gernsback had always believed in the educational power of science fiction, and he continued to advocate his views in the new magazine's editorials. The managing editor, Sam Moskowitz, had been a reader of the early pulp magazines, and published many writers who had been popular before World War II, such as Raymond Z. Gallun, Eando Binder, and Harry Bates. Combined with Gernsback's earnest editorials, the use of these early writers gave the magazine an anachronistic feel.
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Science Fiction Monthly was a British science fiction magazine published from 1974 to 1976 by New English Library. Launched in response to demand from readers for posters of the cover art of New English Library's science fiction paperbacks, it was initially very successful—its circulation had reached 150,000 by the third issue. It reprinted artwork by Chris Foss, Jim Burns, Bruce Pennington, Roger Dean, and many others. Well-known writers who appeared in its pages included Brian Aldiss, Bob Shaw, Christopher Priest, and Harlan Ellison. High production costs meant that a large circulation was necessary to sustain profitability, and when circulation fell to about 20,000 after two years NEL ceased publication. A new magazine, S.F. Digest, was launched in its stead but lasted only one issue.
New Media Distribution/Irjax Enterprises was a comic book distributor and publisher active from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. In 1978, the company's legal actions against the dominant distributor of the era, Sea Gate Distributors, widened the field for the direct market to expand. In 1982, when Irjax's distribution arm went out of business, its processing centers and warehouses formed the basis for Diamond Comics Distributors, the now-dominant comics distributor.
Future Science Fiction and Science Fiction Stories were two American science fiction magazines that were published under various names between 1939 and 1943 and again from 1950 to 1960. Both publications were edited by Charles Hornig for the first few issues; Robert W. Lowndes took over in late 1941 and remained editor until the end. The initial launch of the magazines came as part of a boom in science fiction pulp magazine publishing at the end of the 1930s. In 1941 the two magazines were combined into one, titled Future Fiction combined with Science Fiction, but in 1943 wartime paper shortages ended the magazine's run, as Louis Silberkleit, the publisher, decided to focus his resources on his mystery and western magazine titles. In 1950, with the market improving again, Silberkleit relaunched Future Fiction, still in the pulp format. In the mid-1950s he also relaunched Science Fiction, this time under the title Science Fiction Stories. Silberkleit kept both magazines on very slim budgets throughout the 1950s. In 1960 both titles ceased publication when their distributor suddenly dropped all of Silberkleit's titles.
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