Pérochon, Ernest
Entry updated 1 December 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1885-1942) French author who served at the beginning of World War One before suffering a heart attack and being invalided out; most of his work was nonfantastic; he won the Prix Goncourt in 1920. His sf novel, Les Hommes Frénétiques (1925; trans Brian Stableford as The Frenetic People 2012), describes a Utopian Western world which after a century or so of worldwide peace has suddenly broken into a conflict that evokes 1914-1918 in its self-destructive fury, a Future War that decays into centuries of stalemate marked by the constant use of bacteriological Weapons against Asia. After a further interval of peace, new Weapons enable an even savager conflict, this time involving the creation of Mutants, after which survivors attempt to inhabit the Ruined Earth. During the course of the tale, a new generation of weapons creates Mutants, and the world descends into profound crisis. Pérochon died during World War Two of another heart attack while under threat of arrest by the Vichy government as he had refused to collaborate. [JC]
Ernest Pérochon
born Courtay, Deux-Sèvres, France: 24 February 1885
died Niort: 10 February 1942
works
- Les Hommes Frénétiques (Paris: Plon-Nourrit and Company, 1925) [binding unknown/]
- The Frenetic People (Encino, California: Hollywood Comics/Black Coat Press, 2012) [coll: trans by Brian Stableford of the above: introduction by translator: pb/Yoz]
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