Green, Joseph
Entry updated 2 March 2026. Tagged: Author.
(1931-2026) US author of sf and technical journalism who also worked for NASA, and who began publishing sf with "The Engineer" in New Worlds for February 1962. An Affair with Genius (coll 1969) assembles some of his better early work. Since 1989 he also published short fiction in Analog, F&SF and other magazines as by Francis Marion Soty. Although many of his 70-plus stories (not all sf) have appeared in the USA – along with popular-science articles in Astounding that demonstrate the lucid gift of exposition visible also in his fiction – it was in the UK that he first established his name, and there that most of his early books were first published. The Loafers of Refuge (stories April 1962-July 1963 New Worlds; fixup 1965), his first novel, chronicles the gradual coming together, to their mutual benefit, of colonizing humans and humanlike natives on the planet Refuge, mainly through the mediation of the protagonist (see Colonization of Other Worlds). Green's best novel is probably his second, Gold the Man (1971; vt The Mind Behind the Eye 1972), which deals very competently (though not in depth) with a variety of themes from Superman to Aliens and Intelligence. Gold is Homo sapiens born with about 4oz (120g) of extra association neocortex. As an adult he is asked to "operate" a brain-damaged giant invader from inside its head (see Great and Small). Returning, thus incorporated, to the alien's blandly Utopian home planet, he works out the reason for the imminent destruction of its sun: sentient sunspots. All ends well. Further novels include Conscience Interplanetary (stories April 1965-October 1971 var mags, fixup 1972), the uneven story of a Conscience whose job it is – in a a slightly uneasy replay of the protagonist's role in The Loafers of Refuge – to adjudicate as to the Intelligence of alien species before allowing human beings to exploit their planets.
In the twenty-first century, Green published through his own Small Press Greenhouse Scribes a number of novels, beginning with Spies of Nyscandia (2017), and four volumes of stories with both old and new contents, though Space to Move: Unfettered Stories of Imagination (coll 2021) contains only tales from 1975 and earlier. [JC]
see also: Communications; Matter Transmission.
Joseph Lee Green
born Compass Lake, Florida: 14 January 1931
died Florida: 20 February 2026
works
series
The Weary Road Murders
- A Murder in the RealWorld (Florida: Greenhouse Scribes, 2018) [Weary Road Murders: pb/]
- A Lasting Dream of Murder (Florida: Greenhouse Scribes, 2018) [Weary Road Murders: pb/]
- The Resistance Revolution Murders (Florida: Greenhouse Scribes, 2019) [Weary Road Murders: pb/]
individual titles
- The Loafers of Refuge (London: Victor Gollancz, 1965) [fixup: hb/nonpictorial]
- Gold the Man (London: Victor Gollancz, 1971) [hb/nonpictorial]
- The Mind Behind the Eye (New York: DAW Books, 1972) [vt of the above: pb/Josh Kirby]
- Conscience Interplanetary (London: Victor Gollancz, 1972) [fixup: hb/nonpictorial]
- Star Probe (Toronto, Ontario: Laser Books, 1976) [pb/Kelly Freas]
- The Horde (Toronto, Ontario: Laser Books, 1976) [pb/Kelly Freas]
- Spies of Nyscandia (Florida: Greenhouse Scribes, 2017) [pb/]
- Three Sons of Bitter Sands (Florida: Greenhouse Scribes, 2018) [pb/]
- Down Freedom River (Florida: Greenhouse Scribes, 2020) [pb/]
collections and stories
- An Affair with Genius (London: Victor Gollancz, 1969) [coll: hb/nonpictorial]
- Running Wild: Unfettered Stories of Imagination (Cabin John, Maryland: Wildside Press, 2016) [coll: pb/]
- Fantastic Tales of Love and Loss: Unfettered Stories of Imagination (Florida: Greenhouse Scribes, 2019) [coll: pb/]
- Otherwise Lost: Unfettered Stories of Imagination (Florida: Greenhouse Scribes, 2020) [coll: pb/]
- Space to Move: Unfettered Stories of Imagination (Florida: Greenhouse Scribes, 2021) [coll: pb/]
links
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