Key, Alexander
Entry updated 4 November 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1904-1979) US author who began publishing novels for children with The Red Eagle (1930), and who moved into Children's SF with the Sprockets sequence beginning with Sprockets: A Little Robot (1963), tales not likely to seize a wide audience despite their amiable simplicity. It was only with the Witch Mountain Young Adult sequence – Escape to Witch Mountain (1968), filmed by Walt Disney as Escape to Witch Mountain (1975), and Return from Witch Mountain (1978), which was Tied to Disney's Return from Witch Mountain (1978) – that Key's easy sentimentality was attached to a narrative strong enough to bear it, as two orphan children on the run gradually come to realize that they are in fact Aliens with Psi Powers (and memories) foreign to their ignorant hosts. The first volume was adapted for Television as Escape to Witch Mountain (1995), directed by Peter Rader, and later as Race to Witch Mountain (2009), directed by Andy Fickman (see The Walt Disney Company).
An earlier alien orphaned on Earth had featured in The Forgotten Door (1965). Other singletons of interest include The Golden Enemy (1969), set thousands of years hence when the Ruined Earth descendants of the survivors of nuclear World War Three must face their human nature; The Incredible Tide (1970), another narrative set in a mostly drowned Post-Holocaust world, which was adapted as the Japanese Anime series Future Boy Conan (1978; vt Conan, The Boy in Future); and Flight to the Lonesome Place (1971), where a young mathematical genius flees his oppressors into a space to which only he can understand the route. [JC/DRL]
see also: Small Presses and Limited Editions; Superman.
Alexander Hill Key
born La Plata, Maryland: 21 September 1904
died Alabama: 25 July 1979
works
series
Sprockets
- Sprockets: A Little Robot (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster Press, 1963) [Sprockets: hb/Alexander Key]
- Rivets and Sprockets (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster Press, 1964) [Sprockets: hb/Alexander Key]
- Bolts – A Robot Dog (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster Press, 1966) [Sprockets: hb/Alexander Key]
Witch Mountain
- Escape to Witch Mountain (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster Press, 1968) [Witch Mountain: hb/Leon B Wisdom Jr]
- Return from Witch Mountain (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster Press, 1978) [tie: Witch Mountain: hb/]
individual titles
- The Forgotten Door (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster Press, 1965) [hb/]
- The Golden Enemy (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster Press, 1969) [hb/Don Patterson]
- The Incredible Tide (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster Press, 1970) [hb/Davis Meltzer]
- Flight to the Lonesome Place (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster Press, 1971) [hb/Robert Warkulwiz]
- The Preposterous Adventures of Swimmer (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster Press, 1973) [hb/]
- The Magic Meadow (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster Press, 1975) [hb/]
- Jagger, the Dog from Elsewhere (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster Press, 1976) [hb/]
- The Sword of Aradel (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Westminster Press, 1977) [hb/]
- The Case of the Vanishing Boy (New York: Archway, 1979) [pb/John Melo]
links
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