Burks, Arthur J
Entry updated 13 January 2025. Tagged: Author.
(1898-1974) US military man and author whose first career was in the American Marine Corps (1917-1927); he re-enlisted in World War Two, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel. In the meantime, he began to publish for the Pulp magazines, his first work of fantastic interest being "Thus Spake the Prophetess" (November 1924 Weird Tales) as Estil Critchie; his first sf was "Monsters of Moyen" for Astounding in April 1930. After two decades of high productivity – in a The New Yorker profile (15 February 1936) he estimated he had already published about 1400 stories – he remained intermittently active into the 1960s, under his own name and various pseudonyms including Estil Critchie, Burke MacArthur, Lieutenant Frank Johnson, Scott Morgan and Spencer Whitney.
Little of Burks's sf was reprinted in book form, the most notable exception being The Great Mirror (Summer 1942 Science Fiction Quarterly; 1952); in this hyperbolic tale, Tibetans who control Matter Transmission and various ESP powers mysteriously steal, from the Martians they have been visiting on Mars, a mirror capable of focusing on anything its user wills. Other sf titles include "Earth, the Marauder" (July-September 1930 Astounding), "The Mind Masters" (January-February 1932 Astounding), "Jason Sows Again" (March-April 1938 Astounding), Survival (August 1938 Marvel Science Stories; 2023) and its sequel "Exodus" (November 1938 Marvel Science Stories) and "The Far Detour" (Winter 1942 Science Fiction Quarterly); The Casket (1973) is also sf of a metaphysical kind. Much of Burks's best work was fantasy, including The Great Amen (1938), Look Behind You! (coll 1954 chap) and Black Medicine (coll 1966). He was one of the most prolific of all Pulp-magazine writers: his sf and fantasy constitute only a small fraction of his prodigious output. [JC/MJE]
Arthur J Burks
born Waterville, Washington: 13 September 1898
died Lancaster, Pennsylvania: 13 May 1974
works
- The Great Amen (New York: Egmont Press, 1938) [hb/]
- The Great Mirror (London: Gerald W Swan, 1952) [first appeared Summer 1942 Science Fiction Quarterly: pb/John B Mussacchia]
- The Casket (Lakemount, Georgia: Tarnhelm Press, 1973) [pb/]
collections and stories
- Look Behind You! (Buffalo, New York: Shroud: Publishers, 1954) [coll: chap: hb/Margaret Domenick]
- Black Medicine (Sauk City, Wisconsin: Arkham House, 1966) [coll: stories from 1924 to 1931, mostly from Weird Tales: hb/Lee Brown Coye]
- The Crimson Blight and Other Stories (Rialto, California: Pulp Tales Press, 2009) [coll: pb/]
- The Mind Masters (place not given: Project Gutenberg, 2009) [novella: ebook: first appeared January-February 1932 Astounding: na/]
- Lords of the Stratosphere (place not given: Project Gutenberg, 2009) [story: ebook: first appeared March 1933 Astounding: na/]
- Tales of the Man-Ape (Rockville, Maryland: Wildside Press, 2010) [coll: in the publisher's Pulp Classics series: pb/Wesso]
- Man-Ape: Two Tales from the Pulps (Rockville, Maryland: Wildside Press, 2011) [coll: vt of the above: pb/Harry Ryle Hopps]
- Earth, the Marauder (Rialto, California: Pulpville Press, 2012) [first appeared July 1930 Astounding: pb/Wesso]
- The Osilians (Rialto, California: Pulpville Press, 2012) [coll: title story first appeared April 1957 Fantastic as "The Osilans": pb/Ed Valigursky]
- The Osilans (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2017) [dos: title story from the above with the original title: pb/]
- Blood of the Dragon (Rialto, California: Pulp Tales Press, 2019) [coll: pb/Frank C. McCarthy]
- Cathedral of Horror and Other Stories: The Weird Tales of Arthur J. Burks Vol. 1 (Vancleave, Mississippi: Dancing Tuatara Press, 2014) [coll: pb/]
- Survival (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2023) [dos: first published August 1938 Marvel Science Stories: pb/Jack Gaughan]
links
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