(1907-1977) US author, active in the sf field under his own name and various pseudonyms, including John S Browning, H H Harmon, Russell Storm and the House Name E K Jarvis. He began publishing sf with "Zero as a Limit" for Astounding in 1934 as Robert Moore, and by the 1960s had published over 150 stories. Though most are unremarkable, he was an important supplier of competent genre fiction during these decades, and tales like "Robot's Return" (September 1938 Astounding) – a parable of machine Evolution whose Robot protagonists, visiting from their home on Mars, cannot believe that flesh creatures could have created them back on Earth – retain a dawn pathos. Typically adequate to demand is the Jongor series – comprising Jongor of Lost Land (October 1940 Fantastic Adventures; 1970), The Return of Jongor (April 1944 Fantastic Adventures; 1970) and Jongor Fights Back (December 1951 Fantastic Adventures; 1970) – in which a Tarzan-like barbarian Hero combats Monsters and ancient science in a Lost World in the depths of Australia. The much later Zanthar series – comprising Zanthar of the Many Worlds (1967), Zanthar at the Edge of Never (1968), Zanthar at Moon's Madness (1968) and Zanthar at Trip's End (1969) – replicates the effects of the previous series, though in space with the addition of Mutants; Zanthar himself is a professor with the thews of Jongor.
Williams did not begin publishing singletons until The Chaos Fighters (1955), but thereafter released many novels of the same general calibre as his short fiction, most of his later work being Space Operas. Notable were two novels set in a World War Three ambience: Doomsday Eve (1957 dos), a Post-Holocaust drama in which the world serves as an arena for struggling Supermen, and The Day They H-Bombed Los Angeles (1961), which includes a Recursive reference to Doomsday Eve, though the story itself focuses on the American military's bombing of Los Angeles (see California) to prevent a plague whose victims are initially Zombie-like but "recover" with a compulsion to kill or infect normal humans. Williams wrote few original tales, but rarely a dull one. [JC]
Robert Moore Williams
born Farmington, Missouri: 19 June 1907
died Dateland, Arizona: 12 May 1977
works
series
Jongor
Zanthar
individual titles
- The Chaos Fighters (New York: Ace Books, 1955) [pb/Robert E Schultz]
- Conquest of the Space Sea (New York: Ace Books, 1955) [dos: pb/Ed Valigursky]
- Doomsday Eve (New York: Ace Books, 1957) [dos: pb/Ed Valigursky]
- The Blue Atom (New York: Ace Books, 1958) [dos: pb/Ed Valigursky]
- World of the Masterminds (New York: Ace Books, 1960) [dos: pb/Ed Valigursky]
- The Day They H-Bombed Los Angeles (New York: Ace Books, 1961) [pb/uncredited]
- The Darkness Before Tomorrow (New York: Ace Books, 1962) [dos: pb/Ed Emshwiller]
- King of the Fourth Planet (New York: Ace Books, 1962) [dos: pb/Ed Emshwiller]
- Walk Up the Sky (New York: Avalon Books, 1962) [hb/Ed Emshwiller]
- The Star Wasps (New York: Ace Books, 1960) [dos: pb/Jack Gaughan]
- Flight from Yesterday (New York: Ace Books, 1963) [dos: pb/Jack Gaughan]
- The Lunar Eye (New York: Ace Books, 1964) [dos: pb/Ed Valigursky]
- The Second Atlantis (New York: Ace Books, 1965) [pb/Gray Morrow]
- Vigilante-21st Century (New York: Lancer Books, 1967) [pb/Howard Winters]
- The Bell from Infinity (New York: Lancer Books, 1968) [pb/Jerome Podwil]
- Beachhead Planet (New York: Dell Books, 1970) [pb/Jack Gaughan]
- Now Comes Tomorrow (New York: Curtis Books, 1971) [pb/uncredited]
- Seven Tickets to Hell (New York: Popular Library, 1972) [in the Frankenstein Horror Series: pb/Gray Morrow]
collections and stories
- The Void Beyond and Other Stories (New York: Ace Books, 1958) [coll: dos: pb/Ed Emshwiller]
- To the End of Time and Other Stories (New York: Ace Books, 1960) [coll: dos: pb/Ed Emshwiller]
- When Two Worlds Meet: Stories of Men on Mars (New York: Curtis Books, 1970) [coll of linked stories: pb/uncredited]
- Be It Ever Thus (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2009) [story: ebook: first appeared January 1954 Fantastic Universe: na/]
- Thompson's Cat (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2010) [story: ebook: first appeared September 1952 Planet Stories: na/]
- Sinister Paradise (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2010) [novelette: ebook: first appeared September 1952 If: na/]
- The Lost Warship (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2010) [novella: ebook: first appeared January 1943 Amazing: na/]
- The Next Time We Die (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2010) [story: ebook: first appeared February 19574 Amazing: na/]
- Planet of the Gods (no place given: Project Gutenberg, 2010) [novelette: ebook: first appeared December 1942 Amazing: na/]
- Beyond the Rings of Saturn (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2011) [chap: dos: first appeared March 1951 Amazing: pb/]
- "Time Tolls for Toro" and Other Tales (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2014) [coll: in the publisher's Masters of Science Fiction series: pb/A Leslie Ross]
nonfiction
links
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