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Borodin, George

Entry updated 16 January 2023. Tagged: Author.

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Pseudonym of Russian-born plastic surgeon and author George Milkomane (1903-1996), who lived in the UK from 1932 and took out British citizenship in 1938; one of his pseudonyms, George Alexis Bankoff, was for some time thought to be his real name, but he himself asserted the contrary. Other pseudonyms – he wrote about 120 books in all – include George Braddon, Peter Conway, Alec Redwood and – best known – George Sava, under which name he wrote The Healing Knife (1938), a bestseller about his profession, and many novels, none of sf interest, for Robert Hale Limited.

As Borodin he wrote a political tract, Peace in Nobody's Time (1944), which satirizes a Near Future Britain under socialism; The Book of Joanna: A Fantasy Based on Historical Legend (1947), in which a heavenly – but not entirely Christian – conclave attempts to determine the truth about the legend of the ninth-century Pope Joan, based on her memoir, written in blood in Hell; and Spurious Sun (1948; vt The Threatened People [no library cites a date]). Although ponderously structured like H G Wells's The Shape of Things to Come (1933) as an actual Future History. its narrative is in fact complex and cogently meditated, starting off with an H-bomb-like explosion in Scotland which ignites the upper atmosphere; a savage World War Three ensues, with the UK essentially eliminated by nuclear weapons, both Leningrad and San Francisco (see California) are obliterated, and Canada suffers from an American Invasion. The picture is filled out with germ warfare, attacks by Mutant insects and mammals, mass Suicides, and a devastating portrait of anti-Communist paranoia in the USA, which as usual addresses the wrong targets. Eventually a kind of Children's Crusade, against the odds, brings world peace through a rejuvenated United Nations. [JC]

George Alexis Milkomanovich Milkomane

born Baku, Russia: 15 October 1903

died England: 15 March 1996

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