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Farley, Ralph Milne

Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.

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Pseudonym of US constitutional lawyer, author and teacher Roger Sherman Hoar (1887-1963) for all his sf work except two 1938 stories published in Amazing as by Lt John Pease. Hoar was educated at Harvard and had a remarkably varied career, which included teaching such subjects as mathematics and engineering, inventing a system of aiming large guns by the stars, and serving as a Massachusetts state senator. His early sf work in the Pulp magazines was written in obvious imitation of Edgar Rice Burroughs and was contributed to The Argosy – his first work of genre interest being The Radio Man (28 June-19 July 1924 Argosy All-Story Weekly; 1948; vt An Earthman on Venus 1950), the first instalment of his most famous series, the Radio Man Planetary Romances featuring Miles Cabot, which continued with The Radio Beasts (21 March-11 April 1925 Argosy; 1964), The Radio Planet (26 June-24 July 1926 Argosy All-Story Weekly; 1964), The Radio War (2-30 July Argosy All-Story Weekly; 2006), The Radio Minds (June 1939 Argosy All-Story Weekly; 2008) and "The Radio Minds of Mars" (June 1955 Spaceway, part 1 only; full text January-September/October 1969 Spaceway). The sequence, at first absurdly boosted by The Argosy as scientifically accurate, is devoted to the adventures of Cabot, mostly on Venus, the Radio Planet. After being accidentally shifted to that planet via Matter Transmitter, Cabot quickly frees its humanoid inhabitants from domination by an ant-like race; after marrying a human princess, he continues his activities ad libitum, though sometimes his son takes over.

Other Radio stories, indirectly connected to the main series, include The Radio Flyers (11 May-8 June 1929 Argosy All-Story Weekly; 2009) and The Radio Gun-Runners (22 February-29 March 1930 Argosy; 2016), both of which are Lost Race tales. A short novel, "The Hidden Universe" (November-December 1939 Amazing) – assembled with "We, the Mist" (August 1940 Amazing as "The Living Mist") as The Hidden Universe (coll 1950) and later assembled with The Radio Man as Strange Worlds (omni 1953) – is a crude but effective Pocket Universe tale: an evil Mad-Scientist magnate tricks people into emigrating to a Utopian planet, which turns out to be a warehouse on Earth, for he has shrunken them by a factor of 32 (see Great and Small) as part of a plan to gain absolute power. Along with another title, The Hidden Universe (November-December 1939 Amazing; with "We, the Mist" as coll 1950), The Radio Man was later assembled as Strange Worlds (omni 1953). "Farley" was a rough-hewn, traditional Sense-of-Wonder writer, and became relatively inactive as the genre became more sophisticated after World War Two. [JC/PN]

see also: Aliens; Comics; Eschatology; History of SF; Hive Minds; Time Paradoxes; Time Travel.

Roger Sherman Hoar

born Waltham, Massachusetts: 8 April 1887

died South Milwaukee, Wisconsin: 10 October 1963

works

series

Miles Cabot/Radio Man

  • The Radio Man (Los Angeles, California: Fantasy Publishing Company, 1948) [first appeared 28 June-19 July 1924 Argosy All-Story Weekly: Miles Cabot/Radio Man: hb/O G Estes]
  • The Radio Beasts (New York: Ace Books, 1964) [first appeared 21 March-11 April 1925 Argosy: Miles Cabot/Radio Man: pb/Ed Emshwiller]
    • The Radio Beasts (Rialto, California: Pulpville Press, 2005) [rev of above: original magazine text: hb/]
  • The Radio Planet (New York: Ace Books, 1964) [first appeared 26 June-24 July 1926 Argosy All-Story Weekly: Miles Cabot/Radio Man: pb/John Schoenherr]
  • The Radio War (Rialto, California: Pulpville Press, 2006) [first appeared 2-30 July Argosy All-Story Weekly: Miles Cabot/Radio Man: hb/Robert A Graef]
  • The Radio Minds (Rialto, California: Pulpville Press, 2008) [first appeared June 1939 Argosy All-Story Weekly: different text from The Radio Man above: Miles Cabot/Radio Man: hb/Stanton Mulford]
  • The Golden City (Rialto, California: Pulpville Press, 2006) [first appeared 13 May-17 June 1933 Argosy Weekly: Miles Cabot/Radio Man: hb/Virgil Finlay]
  • The Radio Menace (Rialto, California: Pulpville Press, 2008) [first appeared 7 June-12 July 1929 Argosy All-Story Weekly: Miles Cabot/Radio Man: pb/Robert A Graef]
  • The Radio Flyers (Rialto, California: Pulpville Press, 2009) [first appeared 11 May-8 June 1929 Argosy All-Story Weekly: Miles Cabot/Radio Man: hb/Robert A Graef]
  • The Radio Pirates (Rialto, California: Pulpville Press, 2010) [first appeared 1 August 1931-22 August 1931 Argosy: Miles Cabot/Radio Man: hb/]
  • The Radio Gun-Runners (Rialto, California: Fiction House Press, 2016) [first appeared 22 February-29 March 1930 Argosy: Radio Man: pb/Robert A Graef]

individual titles

collections and stories

  • The Omnibus of Time (Los Angeles, California: Fantasy Publishing Company, 1950) [coll: hb/Jon Arfstrom]
  • The Hidden Universe (Los Angeles, California: Fantasy Publishing Company, 1950) [coll: hb/Ruth Warner-Crozetti as Crozetti]
    • Strange Worlds (Los Angeles, California: Fantasy Publishing Company, 1953) [omni of the above plus The Radio Man: Miles Cabot/Radio Man: hb/Ruth Warner-Crozetti as Crozetti]
    • The Hidden Universe (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2014) [dos: title story only from the above: first appeared November-December 1939 Amazing Stories: pb/] – in this case "above" is The Hidden Universe (coll 1930)
  • The Ralph Milne Farley Collection Book 1 (Rialto, California: Pulpville Press, 2005) [coll: hb/]
  • The Ralph Milne Farley Collection Book 2 (Rialto, California: Pulpville Press, 2005) [coll: hb/]
  • Eric of Aztalan (Rialto, California: Pulp Tales Press, 2009) [coll: pb/Harold S DeLay]

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