Meredith, Richard C

Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.

(1937-1979) US author who began publishing sf with "The Slugs" for Knight magazine in November 1962. His first novel, The Sky Is Filled with Ships (1969), is an effective Space Opera in which colonies revolt against a tyrannical corporation. We All Died at Breakaway Station (January-March 1969 Amazing; 1969) is a bleak, well-crafted space opera in a kind of Alamo setting, where a scarred Cyborg crew must withstand both external Alien enemies and the devils of introspection. Run, Come See Jerusalem! (1976) is a complex, thoroughly worked out Time-Paradox novel, set in a Hitler Wins world. Time also figures centrally in the Timeliner sequence – At the Narrow Passage (1973; rev 1979), No Brother, No Friend (1976; rev 1979) and Vestiges of Time (1978; rev 1979), all three being assembled as The Timeliner Trilogy (omni 1987) – during the course of which Aliens attempt to change Earth's past, and, more importantly, to punish humanity in various Parallel Worlds. Meredith's sense of history was acute and atmospheric, and his Alternate-History tales are, as a consequence, hauntingly suggestive. Into these frameworks his heroes – wounded and reluctant but ultimately stoic – fit neatly. [JC/PN]

Richard Carlton Meredith

born Alderson, West Virginia: 21 October 1937

died Florida: 8 March 1979

works

series

Timeliner

• At the Narrow Passage (New York: G P Putnam's Sons, 1973) [Timeliner: hb/Richard Powers]
  • At the Narrow Passage (New York: Playboy Press Paperbacks, 1979) [rev of the above: Timeliner: pb/Ken Barr]
• No Brother, No Friend (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1976) [Timeliner: hb/Gary Friedman]
  • No Brother, No Friend (New York: Playboy Press Paperbacks, 1979) [rev of the above: Timeliner: pb/Ken Barr]
• Vestiges of Time (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1978) [Timeliner: hb/Margo Herr]
  • Vestiges of Time (New York: Playboy Press Paperbacks, 1979) [rev of the above: Timeliner: pb/Ken Barr]
    • The Timeliner Trilogy (London: Arrow Books, 1987) [omni of revised versions of all three above: Timeliner: pb/Eddie Jones]

individual titles

• The Sky Is Filled with Ships (New York: Ballantine Books, 1969) [pb/Jerome Podwil]
• We All Died at Breakaway Station (New York: Ballantine Books, 1969) [pb/John Berkey]
• Run, Come See Jerusalem! (New York: Ballantine Books, 1976) [pb/The Brothers Hildebrandt]
• The Awakening (New York: St Martin's Press, 1979) [hb/Joel Iskowitz]

links

• Richard C Meredith: An Illustrated Bibliography
• Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Picture Gallery

previous versions of this entry

• Internet Archive