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Glasby, John S

Entry updated 14 August 2023. Tagged: Author.

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(1928-2011) UK author, chemist and astronomer, Fellow of the Royal Society of Astronomy, author of popularizing texts in that field, including Boundaries of the Universe (1971), and of a large number of stories and novels in various genres for pulp publishers of the 1950s and 1960s. He published something like 250 volumes during this period, some of them not yet identified, many of them not sf or fantasy. Like R L Fanthorpe – alongside whom he supplied Badger Books with most of their sf and fantasy titles – and Denis Hughes, he severely curtailed his production when market conditions changed in the early 1960s, publishing only one sf book between 1970 – Project Jove (1971), which was the first novel to appear under his own name – and the late 1980s, when The Plains of Nightmare (coll 1989) inaugurated his late career, during which he published further stories and some longer fiction, as well as Seetee Sun (2007) and The Crimson Peril (2007), two additions (see Sequels by Other Hands) to John Russell Fearn's Golden Amazon sequence.

Like his colleagues, Glasby wrote normally under a range of pseudonyms and House Names, beginning with Satellite B.C. (1952), Time and Space (1952) and Zero Point (1952), all these titles being collaborations with Arthur Roberts, sharing the House Name Rand Le Page which belonged to Curtis Warren, as did Berl Cameron and Paul Lorraine [see Checklist]. Further House Names used were associated with John Spencer and Co and Badger Books: Victor La Salle, John E Muller and Karl Zeigfreid. Glasby's most frequently used personal pseudonym was A J Merak. He also wrote short fiction for the various John Spencer/Badger Books anthology-magazines – Supernatural Stories (see R L Fanthorpe) and several sister publications – as Max Chartair, Randall Conway, Ray Cosmic, John Crawford*, Michael Hamilton, J J Hansby, Peter Laynham, H K Lennard*, John Morton* and Alan Thorndyke* (starred names seem to have been used for one story only). Under five of the above names he wrote the whole contents of both issues of the 1954-1955 Spencer magazine Out of This World.

Though much of his output, either solo or in collaboration, was hasty and unremarkable, he was always capable of more memorable work, especially perhaps in some early stories which showed the influence of A E van Vogt, and also in work published in his later years, no longer written within the draconian constraints of 1950s markets. [JC/DRL]

John Stephen Glasby

born East Retford, Nottinghamshire: 23 September 1928

died England: 5 June 2011

works

series

Golden Amazon

Citations are restricted to Glasby's continuations of John Russell Fearn's Golden Amazon sequence #1-27: see Sequels by Other Hands.

individual titles

Except for works as by A J Merak and John E Muller, all titles are listed consecutively under Other Titles, regardless of pseudonym or House Name. Serial numbers in the Badger Books science fiction (SF) and supernatural (SN) series are noted in the comment fields.

as by A J Merak

  • Dark Andromeda (London: John Spencer and Co, 1954) as by A J Merak [hb/John Richards]
  • Dark Conflict (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1959) as by A J Merak [pb/Ray Theobald]
  • The Dark Millennium (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1959) as by A J Merak [SF 19: pb/uncredited]
  • No Dawn and No Horizon (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1959) as by A J Merak [SF 16: pb/Ed Blandford]
    • The Frozen Planet (New York: Belmont Books, 1969) as by A J Merak [vt of the above: pb/]
  • Barrier Unknown (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1960) as by A J Merak [SF 30: pb/Carl Jacono]
  • Hydrosphere (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1960) as by A J Merak [SF 36: pb/Cha' Bril]

as by John E Muller

John E Muller was a House Name of John Spencer and Co.

other titles

collections

Supernatural Stories

The collections are listed below under the story and byline named on the cover. Stories under different bylines and/or by other authors may appear in the books. In order to make some clear sense of this mass of work, we have here violated our normal practice of designating such books as anthologies. Like his fellow-contributor R L Fanthorpe, Glasby would typically write the entire content for each of "his" issues of Supernatural Stories, though sometimes with contributions from others: for example, one story by A A Glynn in SN 4. In two anomalous cases, The Incredulist (coll 1954) as by Lionel Roberts (a Fanthorpe pseudonym) and Face of Evil (coll 1960) as by R L Fanthorpe, most of the content was by Glasby but a Fanthorpe tale received cover billing and the titles are therefore listed in his entry.

  • The Cloak of Darkness (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1954) as by Max Chartair [coll: SN 1: Supernatural Stories: pb/Ray Theobald]
  • Something from the Sea (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1954) as by Ray Cosmic [coll: SN 3: Supernatural Stories: pb/Gerald Facey]
  • House of Unreason (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1954) as by Ray Cosmic [coll: SN 4: Supernatural Stories: pb/Gerald Facey]
  • My Name Is Satan (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1954) as by A J Merak [coll: SN 5: Supernatural Stories: pb/Gerald Facey]
  • Voice of the Drum (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1955) as by Michael Hamilton [coll: SN 6: Supernatural Stories: pb/Roland Turner]
  • Moonbeast (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1955) as by A J Merak [coll: SN 7: Supernatural Stories: pb/Roland Turner]
  • The Golden Scarab (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1955) as by Ray Cosmic [coll: SN 8: Supernatural Stories: pb/Roland Turner]
  • Nightmare (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1957) as by Randall Conway [coll: SN 10: Supernatural Stories: pb/John Pollack]
  • The Night Creatures (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1957) as by Michael Hamilton [coll: SN 11: Supernatural Stories: pb/Henry Fox]
  • The Chalice of Circe (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1958) as by A J Merak [coll: SN 18: Supernatural Stories: pb/Ray Theobald]
  • Out of the Shadows (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1959) as by Randall Conway [coll: SN 22: Supernatural Stories: pb/Ray Theobald]
  • The Shadow of Terror (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1959) as by Randall Conway [coll: SN 26: Supernatural Stories: pb/Ray Theobald]
  • The Creature in the Depths (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1959) as by J J Hansby [coll: SN 28: Supernatural Stories: pb/Ray Theobald]
  • The Sorcerers of Bast (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1960) as by A J Merak [coll: SN 31: Supernatural Stories: pb/Curt Caesar]
  • The Sea Thing (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1960) as by John Morton [coll: SN 34: Supernatural Stories: pb/Henry Fox]
  • Something About Spiders (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1961) as by A J Merak [coll: SN 45: Supernatural Stories: pb/D Rainey]
  • The Lonely Shadows (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1962) as by A J Merak [coll: SN 63: contents differ from The Lonely Shadows: Tales of Horror and the Cthulhu Mythos (coll 2012) listed below: Supernatural Stories: pb/Henry Fox]
  • Howl at the Moon (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1963) as by A J Merak [coll: SN 79: Supernatural Stories: pb/Henry Fox]
  • Body and Soul (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1967) as by Randall Conway [coll: SN 107: Supernatural Stories: pb/Henry Fox]
  • The Thing in the Mist (London: John Spencer and Co/Badger Books, 1967) as by Max Chartair [coll: SN 109: contents differ from The Thing in the Mist: Selected Stories (coll 2012) listed below: Supernatural Stories: pb/Henry Fox]

other collections

nonfiction (selected)

links

previous versions of this entry



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