Nevala-Lee, Alec
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1980- ) US author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Inversus" in Analog for January-February 2004, and who has been associated with that magazine for most of his career, publishing there several supple Hard SF tales. His first series, the Icon Thief sequence [not listed below], focuses on nonfantastic detections that almost enter Technothriller country. He is of immediate sf interest for his balanced and incisive history of Astounding Science-Fiction, Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction (2018). Nevala-Lee's analysis of the life and work of John W Campbell, and of his effective creation of the Golden Age of SF, is sympathetic, nor does he become evasive as regards the saddening later years, with L Ron Hubbard's Dianetics being only one of the projects pursued in the magazine (see Imaginary Science; Psi Powers; Scientific Errors), whose only "merits" seem to have been their unlikeliness. As the subtitle indicates, Nevala-Lee also focuses on Isaac Asimov and Robert A Heinlein, both elusive and charismatic figures (especially the latter). The book as a whole is a sustained contribution to the study of American Genre SF as it matured. [JC]
Alec Nevala-Lee
born Castro Valley, California: 1980
works
nonfiction
- Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction (New York: William Morrow/Dey Street, 2018) [nonfiction: Astounding Science-Fiction: hb/Tavis Coburn]
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