Slater, Ken
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author, Critic, Fan.
(1917-2008) UK bookseller and bibliographer, active in UK Fandom from the 1940s, founding in 1947 Operation Fantast, a network of fans, which – along with the Science Fantasy Society, which he founded in 1948 – nurtured a readership and community during the difficult years after 1945; the Fanzine Operation Fantast (intermittently 1948-1955) was produced in conjunction with this activity, as well as three annual issues of the glossarial Operation Fantast Handbook (1951-1953). In 1954, building on this network of interested readers and fans, he began to sell books professionally, his duplicated monthly catalogues serving almost as a news magazine (see Newszine). The last of these appeared in 2007. Slater co-founded the British Science Fiction Association in 1958, wrote a column for its magazine Vector 1958-1966, and co-edited two issues of the magazine (December 1966, January 1967) with Doreen Parker. [JC]
see also: Eastercon; Worldcon.
Kenneth Frederick Slater
born Wanstead, Essex: 27 December 1917
died Wisbech, Cambridgeshire: 16 February 2008
works (selected)
nonfiction
- British Science Fiction Book Index 1955 (Wisbech, Cambridgeshire: Fantast (Medway) Ltd, 1956) [nonfiction: chap: pb/]
- A Checklist of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Supernatural Stories Available in Paperback in Britain, January 1966 (Wisbech, Cambridgeshire: Fantast (Medway) Ltd, 1966) [nonfiction: chap: pb/]
links
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