Eastwick, James
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1850-1939) UK author, tentatively identified as the solicitor (later barrister) whose birth and death appear below. He published one work of sf interest, The New Centurion: A Tale of Automatic War (September-October 1895 Longman's Magazine; 1895 chap), which argues in a thinly fictionalized Near Future frame that naval contests in any Future War will be determined by technologies enabling the remote control of gunnery. As earlier expounded in his "Possible Developments in Naval Armament" (September 1894 Contemporary Review), the argument (detailed and plausible) focuses on the near impossibility of maintaining rate of fire of heavy armament in enclosed conditions if humans are physically involved in the action. [JC]
James Eastwick
born Collyweston, Northamptonshire: 30 September 1850 [1851 has also been given]
died Oxford, Oxfordshire: 30 September 1939
works
- The New Centurion: A Tale of Automatic War (London: Longmans, Green and Co, 1895) [chap: first appeared September-October 1895 Longman's Magazine: hb/]
links
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