Ehrlich, Max
Entry updated 15 March 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1909-1983) US author initially active as an author of Radio plays for various series, including The Shadow (see The Shadow); he also wrote some Television scripts of sf interest, include one in 1965 for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and one in 1967 for Star Trek. His first novel, The Big Eye (1949), which was the first release in Doubleday's sf line, concerns an attempt by astronomers to terrify humanity into world peace by announcing that a visiting planet is due to hit Earth (see Scientific Hoax); the planet misses narrowly. Dead is the Blue (1964) is a borderline-sf nuclear-submarine story; The Edict (1971), a Tie to Ehrlich's own screenplay for the film Z.P.G. (1972), deals with an embargo on births. The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (1974), filmed in 1975 from his own screenplay, is a quest novel whose protagonist attempts to track down information about his former self, the murder of whom recurs in his dreams; his adventures continue in Reincarnation in Venice (1979; vt The Bond 1980). Shaitan: A Novel About Man Into Beast (1981) pits a Superman against a super-beast in northern India. Ehrlich was a proficient writer who tended to use sf protocols as much to alarm as to illuminate. [JC]
Max Simon Ehrlich
born Springfield, Massachusetts: 10 October 1909
died Los Angeles, California: 11 February 1983
works
series
Peter Proud
- The Reincarnation of Peter Proud (Indianapolis, Indiana: Bobbs-Merrill, 1974) [Peter Proud: hb/Bill Tinker]
- Reincarnation in Venice (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979) [Peter Proud: hb/Fred Marcellino]
- The Bond (London: Mayflower Books, 1980) [vt of the above: Peter Proud: pb/]
individual titles
- The Big Eye (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1949) [hb/Giresti]
- The Edict (Garden City, New York: Nelson Doubleday, 1971) [tie: Z.P.G.: hb/David Wilcox]
- The Savage is Loose (New York: Bantam Books, 1974) [tie to his screenplay for the film directed by George C Scott: pb/]
- The Cult (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978) [hb/Lawrence Ratzkin]
- Shaitan: A Novel About Man Into Beast (New York: Arbor House, 1981) [hb/]
links
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