Browne, Howard
Entry updated 13 January 2025. Tagged: Author, Editor.
(1908-1999) US author and editor who worked 1942-1947 for Ziff-Davis where, among other responsibilities, he was managing editor of Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures, then under Raymond A Palmer's editorship. He contributed stories to the magazines, two serials about the Tarzan-like prehistoric adventurer Tharn being published also in book form as Warrior of the Dawn: The Adventures of Tharn (December 1942-January 1943 Amazing; 1943) and The Return of Tharn (October-December 1948 Amazing; 1956). His work appeared under a variety of pseudonyms and Ziff-Davis House Names including Alexander Blade, Lawrence Chandler, Ivar Jorgensen (stories only), Jack Lait, Lee Mortimer, John Pollard and Lee Francis. A Blade novella – "Carbon-Copy Killer" (July 1943 Amazing) was much later published with a similar sf mystery under his own name, "Twelve Times Zero" (March 1952 If), under the integrated title Twelve Times Zero/Carbon-Copy Killer (1997 chap dos). After a period in Hollywood, in 1950 Browne became editor of Amazing – where he rejected a mass of material by Richard S Shaver – and Fantastic Adventures. He presided over Amazing's change from Pulp magazine to Digest format, and over the demise of Fantastic Adventures in favour of the digest-sized Fantastic. He returned to Hollywood in 1956. Primarily a mystery writer – his early work in that field being signed John Evans – Browne is reported to have detested sf, but to have liked fantasy. [MJE/JC]
see also: Politics.
Howard Carleton Browne
born Omaha, Nebraska: 15 April 1908
died Carlsbad, California: 28 October 1999
works
series
Tharn
- Warrior of the Dawn: The Adventures of Tharn (Chicago, Illinois: Reilly and Lee, 1943) [Tharn: hb/Fridolf Johnson]
- The Return of Tharn (Providence, Rhode Island: Grandon: Publishers, 1957) [Tharn: hb/Henry M Eichner]
individual titles
- Twelve Times Zero/Carbon-Copy Killer (Brooklyn, New York: Gryphon Books, 1997) [two chapbooks published dos-a-dos, but with integrated titles: pb/Alfred R Klosterman]
- The Man from Yesterday (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2012) [first appeared August 1948 Fantastic Adventures as by Lee Francis: pb/Walter Haskell Hinton]
- Forgotten Worlds (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2015) [first appeared May 1948 Fantastic Adventures: pb/]
- Planet of No Return (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2013) [dos: first appeared May 1951 Amazing Stories as by Lawrence Chandler: pb/R G Jones]
- Revenge of the Robots (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2014) [dos: credited to Browne but true authorship unknown: first appeared December 1952 Fantastic Adventures: pb/R G Jones]
- The Veiled Woman (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2018) as by Micky Spillane [dos: ghostwritten by Browne: first appeared November/December 1952 Fantastic: pb/]
- Strange Mission (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2022) [dos: first appeared June 1944 Fantastic Adventures as "The Strange Mission of Arthur Pendran" as by John X Pollard: pb/R G Jones]
- The Raid on the Termites (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2022) [dos: first appeared January 1958 Fantastic: pb/Ed Valigursky]
collections and stories
- Mars Confidential (place not given: Project Gutenberg, 2010) as by Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer [story: ebook: first appeared April-May 1953 Amazing: na/]
- Call Him Savage (place not given: Project Gutenberg, 2010) as by John Pollard [story: ebook: first appeared March 1954 Amazing: na/]
links
previous versions of this entry