Pendray, G Edward
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1901-1987) US public relations consultant, author and rocket scientist, a founding member of the American Interplanetary Society in 1931, and author of several nonfiction works, including Men, Mirrors and Stars (1935), The Coming Age of Rocket Power (1945) and Rocket Development (anth 1948) edited with Esther Goddard and Robert Goddard; he was involved in installing Time Capsules in both the 1939 and 1964 New York World's Fairs. As Gawain Edwards he published The Earth-Tube (1929), a Yellow Peril tale in which Asians take advantage of their possession of the invulnerable metal undulal to tunnel under South America, which they soon conquer. After a young hero has penetrated the secret, catastrophic explosions close the tunnel, inundating South America but sparing the USA, which has transformed itself into a socialist regime in response to the free gold which the Asians have been raining from the skies in an effort to destabilize the great capitalist democracy. Pendray also published a few genre magazine stories under the Edwards pseudonym, the first and most notable being A Rescue from Jupiter (February-March 1930 Wonder Stories; 2016 dos), a Planetary Romance set on Jove and elsewhere thousands of years hence; the sequel was "The Return from Jupiter" (March-April 1931 Wonder Stories). A longer Space Opera, "The Mutiny in Space" (September 1931 Wonder Stories), ended his sf career. [JC]
George Edward Pendray
born Omaha, Nebraska: 19 May 1901
died Cranbury, New Jersey: 5 September 1987
works
- The Earth-Tube (New York: D Appleton and Co, 1929) as by Gawain Edwards [hb/"JK"]
- A Rescue from Jupiter (Medford, Oregon: Armchair Fiction, 2016) as by Gawain Edwards [dos: first appeared February-March 1930 Science Wonder Stories: pb/]
nonfiction
- Men, Mirrors and Stars (New York: Funk and Wagnalls Co, 1935) [nonfiction: hb/]
- The Coming Age of Rocket Power (New York: Harpers and Brothers, 1945) [nonfiction: hb/]
works as editor
- Rocket Development (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1948) with Esther Goddard and Robert Goddard [nonfiction: anth: hb/]
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