Stover, Leon E
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author, Critic, Editor.
(1929-2006) US editor and author, former professor of Anthropology at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he also taught sf courses, and science editor of Amazing 1967-1969. He was most active in sf in collaboration with Harry Harrison, editing with him Apeman, Spaceman: Anthropological Science Fiction (anth 1968), and writing with him Stonehenge (1972), a historical novel in which refugees from Atlantis – here rather conventionally identified as the Mediterranean island, Thera (Santorini), which exploded in Mycenaean times – help build the eponymous megalith. With Willis E McNelly he edited Above the Human Landscape: An Anthology of Social Science Fiction (anth 1972). He was founder and first chairman of the John W Campbell Memorial Award.
Stover's critical studies perhaps represent him at his most interesting. La science-fiction américaine: essai d'anthropologie culturelle ["American Science Fiction: An Essay in Cultural Anthropology"] (1972) was based on one of his courses. Ostensibly a Recursive tale, The Shaving of Karl Marx: An Instant Novel of Ideas, after the Manner of Thomas Love Peacock, in which Lenin and H G Wells Talk about the Political Meaning of the Scientific Romances (1982) was more accurately a dramatized debate (see also Thomas Love Peacock). In The Prophetic Soul: A Reading of H.G. Wells' Things to Come together with his Film Treatment "Whither Mankind?" and the Postproduction Script (1987) Stover continued to argue that H G Wells – especially in his Samurai mood – produced Leninist solutions to social problems. His Robert A. Heinlein (1987), more stridently, works better as an assault upon H Bruce Franklin's powerful study of Heinlein than as a balanced presentation of the author; the advocacy of his friend and subject in Harry Harrison (1990) proves ineffective through lack of judicious distance. A more generalist survey, tracing the development of sf from the era of Scientific Romance, is Science Fiction from Wells to Heinlein (2002). Stover additionally introduced, edited and annotated several critical texts of works by H G Wells – see Checklist for details.
Throughout his work, Stover has been perhaps most notable – after his erudition is acknowledged – for a gadfly vigour. [JC/DRL]
see also: Economics.
Leon Eugene Stover
born Lewiston, Pennsylvania: 9 April 1929
died Chicago, Illinois: 25 November 2006
works
- Stonehenge (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1972) with Harry Harrison [hb/Jerry Thorp]
- Stonehenge: Where Atlantis Died (New York: Tor, 1983) with Harry Harrison [exp vt of the above: pb/Gino d'Achille]
- The Shaving of Karl Marx: An Instant Novel of Ideas, after the Manner of Thomas Love Peacock, in which Lenin and H G Wells Talk about the Political Meaning of the Scientific Romances (Lake Forest, Illinois: Chiron Press, 1982) [pb/Larry Kowalski]
nonfiction (selected)
- Robert A. Heinlein (Boston, Massachusetts: Twayne Publishers, 1987) [nonfiction: hb/photographic]
- The Prophetic Soul: A Reading of H G Wells's Things to Come Together with his Film Treatment "Whither Mankind?" and the Postproduction Script (Both Never Before Published) (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 1987) [nonfiction: Things to Come: hb/nonpictorial]
- Harry Harrison: A Biography (Boston, Massachusetts: Twayne/G K Hall, 1990) [nonfiction: Harry Harrison: hb/photographic]
- Science Fiction from Wells to Heinlein (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co, 2002) [nonfiction: hb/Chesley Bonestell]
works as editor
series
H G Wells critical editions
- H G Wells. The Island of Doctor Moreau: A Critical Text of the 1896 London First Edition, with an Introduction and Appendices (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co, 1996) [hb/nonpictorial]
- H G Wells. The Time Machine: An Invention: A Critical Text of the 1895 London First Edition, with an Introduction and Appendices (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co, 1996) [hb/nonpictorial]
- H G Wells. The First Men in the Moon: A Critical Text of the 1901 London First Edition, with an Introduction and Appendices (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co, 1998) [hb/nonpictorial]
- H G Wells. The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance: A Critical Text of the 1897 New York First Edition, with an Introduction and Appendices (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co, 1998) [hb/nonpictorial]
- H G Wells. When the Sleeper Wakes: A Critical Text of the 1899 New York and London First Edition, with an Introduction and Appendices (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co, 2000) [hb/nonpictorial]
- H G Wells. The Sea Lady: A Tissue of Moonshine: A Critical Text of the 1902 London First Edition, with an Introduction and Appendices (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co, 2001) [hb/nonpictorial]
- H G Wells. The War of the Worlds: A Critical Text of the 1898 London First Edition, with an Introduction and Appendices (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co, 2001) [hb/nonpictorial]
- H G Wells. The Man Who Could Work Miracles: A Critical Text of the 1936 New York First Edition, with an Introduction and Appendices (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co, 2003) [hb/nonpictorial]
- H G Wells. Things to Come: A Critical Text of the 1935 London First Edition, with an Introduction and Appendices (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co, 2007) [hb/nonpictorial]
individual titles as editor
- Apeman, Spaceman: Anthropological Science Fiction (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1968) with Harry Harrison [anth: hb/Donald and Ann Crews]
- Above the Human Landscape: A Social Science Fiction Anthology (Pacific Palisades, California: Goodyear Publishing, 1972) with Willis E McNelly [anth: hb/]
links
previous versions of this entry