(1889-1972) UK writer, prolific between the Wars, specializing in thrillers (often with Oriental villains) and mysteries. The Yu-Chi Stone (1925) is a Lost Race adventure set in Borneo; The White Owl (1930), on the other hand, involves Toltecs. Snell's sf normally focuses on Mad Scientists and their Inventions: in Blue Murder (1927) a flame-like Ray which disintegrates its victims; in The Sound-Machine (1932), disintegration effected by sound-waves; in The "Z" Ray (1932), x-rays that are nefariously used to kill. He remains best-known for an exuberant sf thriller, Kontrol (1928), in which a Mad Scientist switches genius brains into athletes' bodies, then wipes their minds clean (> Identity Transfer; Memory Edit), in order to create a race of obedient Supermen; he is under the control of a Soviet master operator, whose network operates a fleet of futuristic vertical-take-off aerial juggernauts and a Dystopian supercity on a secret Island. All ends in flames. [PN/JC]
see also: Politics; Weapons.
Edmund Snell
born London: 5 September 1889
died Worthing, Sussex: 1972
works
- The Yellow Seven (London: T Fisher Unwin, 1923) [hb/]
- The Crimson Butterfly (London: T Fisher Unwin, 1924) [hb/]
- The Yu-Chi Stone (London: Allen and Unwin, 1925) [hb/]
- Blue Murder (London: T Fisher Unwin, 1927) [hb/]
- Kontrol (London: Ernest Benn, 1928) [hb/]
- The White Owl (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1930) [hb/]
- The Sound-Machine (London: Skeffington and Son, 1932) [hb/]
- The "Z" Ray (London: Skeffington and Son, 1932) [hb/]
- The Sign of the Scorpion (London: Skeffington and Son, 1935) [hb/]
- The Back of Beyond (London: Philip Allan, 1936) [hb/uncredited]
links
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