Hansen, L Taylor
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1897-1976) US anthropologist and author who attended the University of California Los Angeles for graduate work in science; she published numerous sf stories and popular science articles in the Pulp magazines between 1929 and 1949, beginning with "What the Sodium Lines Revealed" in Amazing Stories Quarterly for Winter 1929, and The Undersea Tube (November 1929 Amazing; 2008 ebook), detailing the failure of a subway under the Atlantic (see Transportation). Perhaps the most interesting of her works was a long tale, "The Prince of Liars" (October 1930 Amazing), whose protagonist is an emissary from the Alien planet of Allos, whose Telepathic inhabitants are masters of Antigravity. He appears on Earth at wide intervals to obtain data on scientific advances without seeming to age, his apparent Time Travel being due to Time Distortion, as time moves very much more slowly on Allos. The Scientific Mysteries series (September 1941-December 1948 Amazing) was nonfiction. Her tales – Forrest J Ackerman claimed in 1939 that Taylor told him that all her stories had been written by her brother, but he seems not to have existed – revolve around Hard SF explanations or technological problems, and tend to include many diagrams.
Of her nonfiction books, at least two are of interest: He Walked the Americas (1963); and The Ancient Atlantic (1969), which deals with the geological and mythic history of the Atlantic Ocean. [JD/JC/MA]
Lucile Taylor Hansen
born Nebraska: 30 November 1897
died Phoenix, Arizona: May 1976
works
- The Undersea Tube (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2008) [story: ebook: first appeared November 1929 Amazing: na/]
nonfiction
- He Walked the Americas (Amherst, Wisconsin: Amherst Press, 1963) [nonfiction: hb/]
- The Ancient Atlantic (Amherst, Wisconsin: Amherst Press, 1969) [nonfiction: hb/]
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