Cowdrey, Albert E
Entry updated 13 January 2025. Tagged: Author.
(1933-2022) US author, much of whose nonfiction work, as an historian for the US Army Center of Military History, focused on the medical branches of the military; he ended this career as Chief of the Special History Branch of the US Army. As an author of fantasy and sf he began to publish work of genre interest with "The Lucky People" for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in February 1968 as by Chet Arthur, and continued under his own name with "The Familiar" (March 1997 F&SF), one of several Azalea Place, New Orleans tales; he won a World Fantasy Award for his story "Queen for a Day" (October/November 2001 F&SF). A selection of his short fiction, comprising fourteen of the more than 80 stories, was published as Revelation and Other Tales of Fantascience (coll 2021).
Cowdrey's sf novel, Crux (fixup 2004), is set in a Ruined Earth three centuries hence, and follows the consequences attendant upon an ironized attempt via Time Travel technology to divert the world from the terrible – though technologically highly sophisticated – civilization that has survived the Troubles. [JC]
Albert Edward Cowdrey
born New Orleans, Louisiana: 8 December 1933
died New Orleans, Louisiana: 21 August 2022
works
- Elixir of Life: An Historical Novel of New Orleans (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1965) as A E Cowdrey [hb/]
- Crux (New York: Tor, 2004) [fixup: hb/Alan Pollack]
collections and stories
- The Tribes of Bela (place not given: Fictionwise, 2006) [story: ebook: first appeared August 2004 F&SF: na/]
- Revelation and Other Tales of Fantascience (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2021) [coll: introduction by Gordon Van Gelder: hb/Cory Ench]
links
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