Kettle, Leroy
Entry updated 6 June 2023. Tagged: Author, Fan.
(1949- ) UK fan, now-retired civil servant – he received an OBE in 2006 for his work on disability rights – and author. His Fanzines Fouler (six issues 1970-1972, numbered 2 to 7), with Greg Pickersgill, and the witty solo True Rat (ten issues 1973-1978) were central to 1970s London Ratfandom; the best of this fanzine work has been assembled as True Rat: The Beast of Leroy Kettle (2018 ebook). Kettle's professional sf debut was "The Great Plan" in New Writings in SF 28 (anth 1976) edited by Kenneth Bulmer. For discussion of his later pseudonymous collaborations with John Brosnan, writing together as Harry Adam Knight and as Simon Ian Childer, see the entry for his collaborator: of these Horror in SF thrillers, Slimer (1983) as by Knight was filmed as Proteus (1995) and Bedlam (1992) as by Knight was filmed as Beyond Bedlam (1994). The humorous The Dirty Movie Book (1988; 2018 ebook) as by Leroy Mitchell with Brosnan includes such science-fictional spoofs as "Dr Frankensex", about the making of a fictitious porn movie that perverts the Frankenstein theme. Future Perfect (2014) with Chris Evans is a conspiracy thriller with links to sf and Fandom, in which seeming Precognition in a bygone sf author's work converts his stories into sought-after McGuffins; among the pursuers is a church founded by another sf author, bearing some resemblance to Scientology. [JC/DRL]
see also: Eastercon; FAAn Awards.
Leroy Richard Arthur Kettle
born Bilston, Staffordshire: 1949
works
- Slimer (London: W H Allen/Star, 1983) with John Brosnan, writing together as by Harry Adam Knight [pb/]
- The Fungus (London: W H Allen/Star, 1985) with John Brosnan, writing together as by Harry Adam Knight [pb/uncredited]
- Death Spore (New York: Zebra/Pinnacle, 1990) with John Brosnan, writing together as by Harry Adam Knight [vt of the above: pb/]
- Tendrils (London: Grafton, 1986) with John Brosnan, writing together as by Simon Ian Childer [pb/Alan Hood]
- Bedlam (London: Victor Gollancz, 1992) with John Brosnan, writing together as by Harry Adam Knight [hb/Tom Stimpson]
- Future Perfect (Hitchin, Hertfordshire: Pitchblende Books, 2014) with Chris Evans [pb/Peter Rozycki]
nonfiction
- The Dirty Movie Book (London: Grafton, 1988) as by Leroy Mitchell, with John Brosnan [nonfiction: humour: pb/Paul Sample]
- The Dirty Movie Book (Reading, Berkshire: Ansible Editions, 2018) under his own name, with John Brosnan [nonfiction: ebook: with new introduction by Kettle: na/nonpictorial]
- True Rat: The Beast of Leroy Kettle (Reading, Berkshire: Ansible Editions, 2018) [nonfiction: coll: ebook: edited by Rob Hansen: na/photographic]
links
previous versions of this entry