Corley, Edwin
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1931-1981) US author who wrote thrillers as by Patrick Buchanan, Will Collins, David Harper and William Judson; his sf is all under his own name. Siege (1969) resembles several other US novels of the period in its depiction of a Black revolution centred – as in John A Williams's Sons of Darkness, Sons of Light (1969) – on New York. The titular scientific phenomenon of The Jesus Factor (1970) inhibits the detonation of nuclear weapons which are in motion (in falling bombs or missiles) rather than being held immobile in a nuclear test zone. Here Hiroshima's destruction proves to have been an inadvertent hoax – the testing of a gigantic aerial-reconnaissance flashgun coincided with an earthquake that levelled the city – which was subsequently exploited to prevent Future Wars. Other novels of sf interest include Acapulco Gold (1972), in which an American President tries to legalize marijuana; Sargasso (1977), in which the returning Apollo 19 space capsule makes its splashdown in the Bermuda Triangle and is found empty, after which many complications ensue; and The Genesis Rock (1980), which foresees a Near-Future volcanic eruption, again affecting New York. [JC/DRL]
Edwin Corley
born Bayonne, New Jersey: 22 October 1931
died Gulfport, Mississippi: 7 November 1981
works
- Siege (New York: Stein and Day, 1969) [hb/John Farmer]
- The Jesus Factor (New York: Stein and Day, 1970) [hb/]
- Acapulco Gold (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1973) [hb/]
- Sargasso (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1973) [hb/Ron Becker]
- The Genesis Rock (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1980) [hb/Fred Marcellino]
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