Leonard, George H
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1921-2018) US public health administrator and author who served in World War Two from 1941 to 1945 and began to publish work of genre interest with Sexmax (1969) as by Hughes Cooper, a modestly erotic novel in which love and Sex perturb a Computer-controlled Dystopia. His sf novel under his own name, Alien (1977; vt Alien Quest 1981), explores competently – but without much energy – the conventions of the sf adventure tale; it is unconnected to the 1979 film Alien, whose release and fame are presumably responsible for the 1981 novel reissue's title change.
Leonard is also the author of a classic work of Pseudoscience (or just possibly a spoof), Somebody Else Is on the Moon (1976; vt Someone Else Is on Our Moon 1977), which purports to explain many features of the Moon's landscape in terms of the mighty engineering works of Alien colonists; and, inter alia, characterizes Galileo as a "feisty pioneer". The author later disavowed this book.
He should not be confused with George Leonard. [DRL/JC/JGr]
see also: UFOs.
George Hill Leonard
born Maiden, Massachusetts: 24 December 1921 [as George Hughes Cooper Jr; Leonard and Hill were his mother's and stepfather's surnames]
died Rockville, Maryland: 20 November 2018
works
- Sexmax (New York: Paperback Library, 1969) as by Hughes Cooper [pb/C Foster]
- Alien (Chicago, Illinois: Playboy Press, 1977) [pb/David Muench]
- Alien Quest (London: Sphere, 1981) [vt of the above: pb/]
nonfiction
- Somebody Else Is on the Moon (New York: David MacKay, 1976) [hb/]
- Someone Else Is on Our Moon (London: W H Allen, 1977) [vt of the above: hb/Chris Foss]
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