Yates, Alan G
Entry updated 5 April 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1923-1985) UK-born author, in Australia from 1948, who was best known for his long series of detections under the House Name Carter Brown, writing about 150 volumes as Brown, sometimes at a rate of twenty or more a year; he wrote also as Tom Conway, Dennis Sinclair, Paul Valdez and Peter Yates. He began to write sf – usually to rigid formula – with some short stories around 1950, with G C Bleeck (see Belli Luigi), for Thrills Incorporated; and with a series of short novels in the Scientific Thrillers sequence, not all of which have been examined, but several of which contain sf (though more frequently supernatural) elements. Those clearly of sf interest include: Hypnotic Death (1949 chap), in which a malign Invention is used to kill clients of an insurance firm; The Fatal Focus (1950 chap), featuring X-ray vision; The Time Thief (1951 chap), a Time Travel tale; There's No Future in Murder (1952 chap); The Crook Who Wasn't There (1952 chap), featuring Invisibility.
Under his own name, Yates released only one sf title, Coriolanus, the Chariot! (1978), set on a planetoid called Thesbos where – in Pariah Elite quarantine enforced by a fearful Galactic Federation – actors learn to become shape-changing illusionists (see Shapeshifters). Within Thesbos, Paranoia, brutally imposed shape-changes and Virtual-Reality-like manipulations flourish, the Tarot and the world of Shakespeare intermingle, and the protagonist, having gained supremacy in the toxic game at the cost of at least some of his humanity, determines to break out. Florid and intense, the book is unlike anything else Yates ever wrote, though some of his Scientific Thriller titles were more exuberant than usual for that series. Booty for a Babe (1956) as by Peter Carter Brown, though not sf, has Recursive elements, being set at an sf Convention. [JC]
Alan Geoffrey Yates
born Ilford, Essex: 1 August 1923
died Cremorne, New South Wales, Australia: 5 May 1985
works
series
Scientific Thriller
- Hypnotic Death (Sydney, New South Wales: Transport Publishing, 1949) as by Paul Valdez [novella: chap: Scientific Thriller series: pb/Maurice Bramley]
- The Fatal Focus (Sydney, New South Wales: Transport Publishing, 1950) as by Paul Valdez [novella: chap: Scientific Thriller series: pb/Maurice Bramley]
- The Time Thief (Sydney, New South Wales: Transport Publishing, 1951) as by Paul Valdez [novella: chap: Scientific Thriller series: pb/Maurice Bramley]
- The Corpse Sat Up (Sydney, New South Wales: Transport Publishing, 1951) as by Paul Valdez [novella: chap: Scientific Thriller series: pb/Maurice Bramley]
- Flight into Horror (Sydney, New South Wales: Transport Publishing, 1951) as by Paul Valdez [novella: chap: Scientific Thriller series: pb/Maurice Bramley]
- Killer by Night (Sydney, New South Wales: Transport Publishing, 1951) as by Paul Valdez [novella: chap: Scientific Thriller series: pb/Maurice Bramley]
- Ghosts Don't Kill (Sydney, New South Wales: Transport Publishing, 1951) as by Paul Valdez [novella: chap: Scientific Thriller series: pb/Maurice Bramley]
- Murder Gives Notice (Sydney, New South Wales: Transport Publishing, 1951) as by Paul Valdez [novella: chap: Scientific Thriller series: pb/Maurice Bramley]
- Satan's Sabbath (Sydney, New South Wales: Transport Publishing, 1951) as by Paul Valdez [novella: chap: Scientific Thriller series: pb/Maurice Bramley]
- You Can't Keep Murder Out (Sydney, New South Wales: Transport Publishing, 1951) as by Paul Valdez [novella: chap: Scientific Thriller series: pb/Maurice Bramley]
- Kill Him Gently (Sydney, New South Wales: Transport Publishing, 1951) as by Paul Valdez [novella: chap: Scientific Thriller series: pb/Maurice Bramley]
- Celluloid Suicide (Sydney, New South Wales: Transport Publishing, 1951) as by Paul Valdez [novella: chap: Scientific Thriller series: pb/Maurice Bramley]
- The Murder I Don't Remember (Sydney, New South Wales: Transport Publishing, 1952) as by Paul Valdez [novella: chap: Scientific Thriller series: pb/Maurice Bramley]
- There's No Future in Murder (Sydney, New South Wales: Transport Publishing, 1952) as by Paul Valdez [novella: chap: Scientific Thriller series: pb/Maurice Bramley]
- The Crook Who Wasn't There (Sydney, New South Wales: Transport Publishing, 1952) as by Paul Valdez [novella: chap: cover reads "The Killer Who Wasn't There": Scientific Thriller series: pb/Maurice Bramley]
- Maniac Murders (Sydney, New South Wales: Transport Publishing, 1952) as by Paul Valdez [novella: chap: Scientific Thriller series: pb/Maurice Bramley]
- Feline Frame-Up (Sydney, New South Wales: Transport Publishing, 1952) as by Paul Valdez [novella: chap: Scientific Thriller series: pb/Maurice Bramley]
individual titles
- Booty for a Babe (Sydney, New South Wales: Transport Publishing, 1956) as by Peter Carter Brown [pb/uncredited]
- Coriolanus, the Chariot! (New York: Ace Books, 1978) as Alan Yates [pb/Alex Ebel]
links
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