Lesser, Milton
Entry updated 19 February 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1928-2008) US author, more recently the writer of many crime novels and a few sf stories under the name he took legally in the 1950s, Stephen Marlowe. His sf mostly appeared in the Ziff-Davis magazines, including his first story, "All Heroes Are Hated!" for Amazing in November 1950 (as All Heroes Are Hated 2015 dos), but he had been an active fan for some years before that. His other pseudonyms for sf included Adam Chase, C H Thames (twenty-seven times), Christopher Thames (once), and the House Name S M Tenneshaw; he also wrote thrillers as Thames, Andrew Frazer and Jason Ridgway, and ghosted the crime novel Dead Man's Tale (1961) as by Ellery Queen. As Lesser he wrote several Young Adult sf novels, including Earthbound (1952), about a space cadet unjustly confined to Earth; The Star Seekers (1953), a Generation Starship tale; Stadium Beyond the Stars (1960), in which young human athletes compete in the Interstellar Olympics (see Games and Sports); and Spacemen, Go Home (1961), a Space Opera. Novels for adult readers include Recruit for Andromeda (July 1953 Imagination as "Voyage to Eternity"; exp 1959 dos), whose hero must compete in an Alien-run game (see Games and Sports) that pits representatives of civilizations against each other in the eponymous galaxy, with Earth split into teams USA and USSR; a collaboration with Paul W Fairman under various names, The Golden Ape (January-March 1957 Amazing as "Quest of the Golden Ape" by Adam Chase and Ivar Jorgensen; 1959) as by Adam Chase, a Space Opera; and Secret of the Black Planet (1952 Amazing as "Secret of the Black Planet" and "Son of the Black Chalice"; fixup 1965), the secret being Immortality as created by a long-dead Forerunner race from what is now the asteroid belt. Lesser also edited the anthology Looking Forward: An Anthology of Science Fiction (anth 1953).
Stephen Marlowe abandoned sf in the early 1960s, but some of his later thrillers Equipoisally mix crime, sf and the supernatural, notably The Search for Bruno Heidler (1966), Translation (1976) and The Valkyrie Encounter (1978); these are much more effective than his routine action-adventure sf. He also wrote three fantasticated fictional studies in historical figures: The Memoirs of Christopher Columbus (1978); The Death and Life of Miguel de Cervantes (1991); and The Lighthouse at the End of the World (1995), about Edgar Allan Poe. [BS/JC]
Milton Lesser/Stephen Marlowe
born New York: 7 August 1928
died Williamsburg, Virginia: 22 February 2008
works
as Milton Lesser
- Earthbound (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: John C Winston, 1952) [hb/Peter Poulton]
- The Star Seekers (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: John C Winston, 1953) [hb/Paul Callé]
- Recruit for Andromeda (New York: Ace Books, 1959) [dos: pb/Ed Emshwiller]
- Stadium Beyond the Stars (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: John C Winston, 1960) [hb/Mel Hunter]
- Spacemen, Go Home (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961) [hb/Ed Emshwiller]
- Secret of the Black Planet (New York: Belmont Books, 1965) [fixup: pb/]
- Somewhere I'll Find You (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2011) [dos: first appeared December 1951 Amazing Stories: pb/R G Jones]
- Slaves to the Metal Horde (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2011) [dos: first appeared June 1954 Imagination: pb/Malcolm Smith]
- Jungle in the Sky (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2012) [dos: first appeared May 1952 If: pb/Ralph Joiner]
- Tyrants of Time (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2012) [dos: first appeared March 1954 Imagination: pb/W E Terry]
- Operation Disaster (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2012) [dos: first appeared September 1956 Imaginative Tales as by Darius John Granger: pb/Lloyd Rognan]
- The Thing from Underneath (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2012) [dos: first appeared June 1956 Amazing Stories: pb/Ed Valigursky]
- Forty Days has September (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2013) [dos: first appeared October 1951 Amazing Stories: pb/R G Jones]
- Son of the Black Chalice (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2014) [dos: first appeared July 1952 Amazing Stories: pb/Lawrence Sterne Stevens as Lawrence]
- Revolt of the Outworlds (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2014) [dos: first appeared December 1954 Imagination: pb/John Pederson, Jr]
- All Heroes Are Hated (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2015) [dos: first appeared November 1950 Amazing Stories: pb/Arnold Kohn]
- The Last Revolution (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2015) [dos: first appeared January 1952 Amazing Stories: pb/Milton Luros]
- He Fell Among Thieves (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2015) [dos: first appeared March 1952 Fantastic Adventures: pb/Ed Valigursky and Leo Summers]
- His Touch Turned Stone to Flesh (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2015) [dos: first appeared August 1957 Dream World as by Adam Chase: pb/Ed Valigursky]
- The Idols of Wuld (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2016) [dos: first appeared April 1953 Rocket Stories as by Darius John Granger: pb/Ed Emshwiller]
- Gateway to Infinity (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2016) [dos: first appeared May 1956 Imaginative Tales as by Darius John Granger: pb/Lloyd Rognan]
- The Last Revolution (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2017) [dos: first appeared January 1952 Amazing Stories as by Stephen Marlowe: pb/Milton Luros]
- Forever We Die (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2017) [dos: first appeared August 1956 Imagination as by C H Thames: pb/W E Terry]
- Newshound, 2103 A. D. (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2018) [dos: first appeared July 1955 Imagination as "Newshound": pb/W E Terry]
- Through a Glass Darkly (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2023) [dos: first appeared March 1956 Science Fiction Stories: pb/Lawrence Sterne Stevens as Lawrence]
as by Adam Chase
- The Golden Ape (New York: Avalon Books, 1959) with Paul W Fairman, writing together as Adam Chase [first appeared January-March 1957 Amazing as "Quest of the Golden Ape" as by Adam Chase and Ivar Jorgensen: hb/Ed Emshwiller]
- Quest of the Golden Ape (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2011) with Paul W Fairman as by Adam Chase and Ivar Jorgensen [dos: original magazine version of the above: pb/Ed Valigursky]
as by Ellery Queen
- Dead Man's Tale (New York: Pocket Books, 1961) as by Ellery Queen [pb/]
as by Stephen Marlowe
- The Search for Bruno Heidler (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1966) as by Stephen Marlowe [hb/]
- Translation (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1976) as by Stephen Marlowe [hb/Hal Siegel]
- The Valkyrie Encounter (New York: J P Putnam's Sons, 1978) as by Stephen Marlowe [hb/]
- The Memoirs of Christopher Columbus (New York: Scribners, 1978) as by Stephen Marlowe [hb/]
- The Death and Life of Miguel de Cervantes (London: Bloomsbury, 1991) as by Stephen Marlowe [hb/]
- The Lighthouse at the End of the World (New York: E P Dutton, 1995) as by Stephen Marlowe [hb/]
collections
- Johnny Mayhem (Victorville, California: Pulp Tales Press, 2013) [coll of linked stories: Johnny Mayhem: pb/Ed Valigursky]
- "A" as in Android and Other Tales (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2014) [coll: in the publisher's Masters of Science Fiction series: pb/Leo Morey]
- The Iron Virgin and Other Stories (Huntsville, Alabama: Thunderchild Publishing, 2013) [coll: ebook: na/Ed Valigursky]
- Forever We Die! and Other Stories (Huntsville, Alabama: Thunderchild Publishing, 2014) [coll: ebook: na/W E Terry]
nonfiction
- Lost Worlds and the Men Who Found Them (Racine, Wisconsin: Whitman Publishing Company, 1962) [nonfiction: illus/hb/Richard Harker]
works as editor
- Looking Forward: An Anthology of Science Fiction (New York: Beechhurst Press, 1953) [anth: hb/Kurt Werth]
about the author
- Graham Andrews. "Milton Lesser". (November 2009 Book and Magazine Collector, whole #313) [pp48-63: mag/]
links
previous versions of this entry