Platt, Charles
Entry updated 13 January 2025. Tagged: Author, Critic, Editor, Fan.

(1945- ) UK-born author and editor, in the USA from 1970; he was born Charles Michael Platt but legally abandoned his middle name on becoming a US citizen; he has also published as by Aston Cantwell, Robert Clarke, Charlotte Prentiss and Blakely St James; married to Nancy Weber (see Lindsay West) 1977-circa 1980. Initially active in sf Fandom, writing Fanzines during this early 1960s period, he began publishing sf with "One of Those Days" for the December 1964-January 1965 issue of Science Fantasy, and soon became associated with New Worlds during the period when, under Michael Moorcock's editorship, it was seen as the pre-eminent New-Wave journal. Platt served initially as the magazine's designer, becoming editor in 1970 after Moorcock stepped down. He also co-edited two issues of the New Worlds anthology series New Worlds Quarterly: New Worlds 6: The Science Fiction (anth 1973; vt New Worlds #5 1974) with Moorcock, and New Worlds 7 (anth 1974; vt New Worlds #6 1975) with Hilary Bailey.
Platt's first published novel, initially serialized in New Worlds, was Garbage World (October-November 1966 New Worlds; 1967), in which sf premise and scatological humour sometimes war – for instance, the Asteroid of the title, used as a garbage dump, is called Kopra. Planet of the Voles (1971) is a Space Opera, but The City Dwellers (1970; rev vt Twilight of the City: A Novel of the Near Future 1977) is, in its heavily revised version, a substantial Near-Future look at the death of an unnamed city closely resembling New York and of the crisis-ridden America surrounding it. From the first, his work demonstrated undeviating clarity, Pulp-magazine plotting instincts, and a sure inclination to offend. The Gas (1970; rev 1980), which has a genuine sf premise – the eponymous gas, accidentally released over England, works as an irresistible aphrodisiac – treats its Sex material in transgressively pornographic terms, which aroused the ire of the Manchester police, very active in those years as attempted arbiters of public morality. The Image Job (1971) and The Power and the Pain (1971) are pornography, the latter with marginal sf elements. Some of his other work was less forthright, including A Song for Christina (1976) as by Blakely St James (a Playboy Press House Name), which has no genre content, though Christina Enchanted (1980), also as by St James, uses sf arguments to underpin an occult hoax; a third St James volume, Christina's Touch (1981), once again has no genre content.
In the early 1980s Platt wrote little sf, concentrating his activities in the field on The Patchin Review (June 1981-March 1985), a journal of comment, often controversial, which he edited and of which he wrote significant portions. Its less edgy and more Fanzine-like successor was REM (July 1985-December 1987), which after ten issues became Science Fiction Guide (occasionally from March 1988; though none appeared after 1989, the journal was never officially terminated). Far more intense than his earlier "amateur" publications, The Patchin Review in particular was notable for a rigorous concentration upon literary issues, and should not perhaps be categorized as a fanzine were it not that its editor retained a tough-love fondness for gossip and scandal. During these years Platt also published Dream Makers: The Uncommon People Who Write Science Fiction (coll 1980; exp vt Who Writes Science Fiction? 1980) and Dream Makers, Volume II: The Uncommon Men & Women Who Write Science Fiction (coll 1983), two separate revised selections from both volumes being published as Dream Makers: SF and Fantasy Writers at Work (coll 1986) and Dream Makers (coll 2014); the Interviews here collected were polished and showed an attentive, surprisingly sympathetic mind at work, perhaps most notably in the long piece about James Tiptree Jr.
Platt then returned to active sf writing with Less than Human (1986 as by Robert Clarke), a comically couched adventure in which a fully human-appearing Android who has descended upon New York is hunted down by a police officer gradually transformed into a Cyborg as the plot advances. Free Zone (1988), a novel which hilariously makes use of almost every sf theme, trope and instrument yet devised (a chart was provided; see Clichés) to tell a pixilated tale of urban anarchy and dreadful threat; and The Silicon Man (1991), a Hard-SF perusal of the implications of Cyberpunk in which the sense of what it means actually to become information (in Platt's terms an infomorph) in Cyberspace is chillingly and at points bracingly examined. The Tribal sequence – beginning with Children of the Ice (1993) and ending with The Ocean Tribe (1998), all as by Charlotte Prentiss – begins as Prehistoric SF and progresses into somewhat fantasticated historical times, featuring different protagonists through this progress. The Immortal Computer-engineer protagonist of his most recent standalone novel, Protektor (1996), travels to a planet in technological disarray, and, rather like an author of Hard SF, analyses the world in terms of fixable dysfunctions.
Though sometimes arousing, and knowingly contrarian, Platt could never be described as a warm or overheated writer of sf, nor that he has generally found it easy to create a narrative structure fit to convey the rigour of his thinking. That rigorousness is most clearly expressed in Loose Canon (coll 2003), which assembles much of his criticism, the heart of which is a surprisingly eloquent lament for American sf's abandonment of what he felt was its mission: to tell the truth about the future and how to make it ours. This sense of sf as engaging in an advocacy that mapped the full consequences of scientific and technological progress did not easily survive the twentieth century, and the essays in Loose Canon necessarily employ a retrospective gaze. Platt has indicated, here and elsewhere, that his disaffection from sf is likely to remain permanent; premonitions of this distancing can be traced throughout the first volume of his autobiography, An Accidental Life, Volume 1, 1944-1964: How I Failed at Almost Everything (2020). Sf as a genre remains naggingly short of genuine iconoclasts: Platt has therefore been a necessary writer; his return to the field would be welcome. [JC]
see also: Cities; Disaster; Games Workshop; Interzone; Music; Perception; Pollution; Women SF Writers.
Charles Platt
born London: 26 April 1945
works
series
Christina
- A Song for Christina (New York: Playboy Paperbacks, 1976) as by Blakeley St James [Christina: pb/]
- Christina Enchanted (New York: Playboy Paperbacks, 1980) as by Blakeley St James [Christina: pb/]
- Christina's Touch (New York: Playboy Paperbacks, 1982) as by Blakeley St James [Christina: pb/]
Tribal
- Children of the Ice: At the End of the Last Ice Age, 13,000 BC (New York: Onyx Books, 1993) as by Charlotte Prentiss [Tribal: pb/Bart Bemus]
- People of the Mesa: 8,000 BC in Idaho and Utah (New York: Onyx Books, 1995) as by Charlotte Prentiss [Tribal: pb/]
- Children of the Mesa (San Francisco, California: Strange Particle Press, 2022) as by Charlotte Prentiss [vt of the above: Tribal: pb/]
- Children of the Sun: The Anasazi in the American Southwest 10,000 Years After the Last Ice Age (New York: Onyx Books, 1995) as by Charlotte Prentiss [Tribal: pb/]
- The Island Tribe (New York: HarperPrism, 1997) as by Charlotte Prentiss [Tribal: pb/]
- Children of the Island (San Francisco, California: Strange Particle Press, 2022) as by Charlotte Prentiss [vt of the above: Tribal: pb/]
- The Ocean Tribe (New York: HarperPaperbacks, 1998) as by Charlotte Prentiss [Tribal: illus/pb/Luis Royo]
- Children of the Ocean (San Francisco, California: Strange Particle Press, 2022) as by Charlotte Prentiss [vt of the above: Tribal: pb/]
Piers Anthony's Worlds of Chthon
- Piers Anthony's Worlds of Chthon: Plasm (New York: New American Library, 1987) [tie to Piers Anthony's Chthon: Piers Anthony's Worlds of Chthon: pb/J K Potter]
- Piers Anthony's Worlds of Chthon: Soma (New York: New American Library, 1988) [tie to Piers Anthony's Chthon: Piers Anthony's Worlds of Chthon: pb/J K Potter]
individual titles
- Garbage World (New York: Berkley Books, 1967) [first appeared October-November 1966 New Worlds: pb/]
- Highway Sandwiches (place not given: privately published, 1970) with Thomas M Disch and Marilyn Hacker [poetry: coll: chap: pb/Charles Platt]
- Planet of the Voles (New York: G P Putnam's Sons, 1971) [hb/Paul Lehr]
- The City Dwellers (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1970) [hb/nonpictorial]
- Twilight of the City: A Novel of the Near Future (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co, 1977) [rev vt of the above: hb/Bob Silverman]
- The Gas (New York: The Ophelia Press, 1970) [pb/nonpictorial]
- The Gas (Manchester, England: Savoy Books, 1980) [rev of the above: introduction by Philip José Farmer: pb/Harry Douthwaite]
- The Gas (Port Townsend, Washington: Loompanics Unlimited, 1995) [further rev of the above: pb/]
- The Gas: Completely Revised Edition (Herzogenrath, Germany: Seidelman and Company, 2022) as Charles Michael Platt [rev vt of above: pb/Charles Platt]
- The Image Job (New York: The Ophelia Press, 1971) [pb/nonpictorial]
- The Power and the Pain (New York: The Ophelia Press, 1971) [pb/nonpictorial]
- Sweet Evil (New York: Berkley Books, 1977) [pb/]
- Love's Savage Embrace (New York: Jove, 1981) as by Charlotte Prentiss [pb/]
- Tease for Two (New York: Warner Books, 1983) as by Aston Cantwell [pb/]
- Double Delight (New York: Warner Books, 1983) as by Aston Cantwell [pb/]
- How to Be a Happy Cat (London: Victor Gollancz, 1984) [text presented as written by a cat: illus/hb/Gray Joliffe]
- Less than Human (New York: Avon Books, 1986) as by Robert Clarke [pb/]
- Free Zone (New York: Avon Books, 1988) [pb/Gary Ruddell]
- The Silicon Man (New York: Bantam Books, 1991) [pb/Jean-François Podevin]
- Protektor (New York: AvoNova, 1996) [pb/Tom Canty]
- The Silicon Man & Protektor (Mount Vernon, Washington: The Stairway Press, 2015) [omni of the above two: with new introductions by author: pb/]
nonfiction
series
Dream Makers
- Dream Makers: The Uncommon People Who Write Science Fiction (New York: Berkley Books, 1980) [nonfiction: coll: Dream Makers: pb/]
- Who Writes Science Fiction? (Manchester, England: Savoy Books, 1980) [nonfiction: coll: rev vt of the above: Dream Makers: pb/Derek Twiss]
- Dream Makers, Volume II: The Uncommon Men & Women Who Write Science Fiction (New York: Berkley Books, 1983) [nonfiction: coll: Dream Makers: pb/]
- Dream Makers: SF and Fantasy Writers at Work (London: Xanadu, 1986) [nonfiction: omni of the above plus the revised version of Dream Makers above: Dream Makers: pb/Video Graffiti]
- Dream Makers: The Stairway Press Collected Edition (Mount Vernon, Washington: The Stairway Press, 2014) [nonfiction: omni containing 24 profiles from the above two: pb/]
An Accidental Life
- An Accidental Life, Volume 1, 1944-1964: How I Failed at Almost Everything (place not given: for the author, 2020) [nonfiction: autobiography: An Accidental Life: pb/Charles Platt]
- An Accidental Life, Volume 2, 1965-1970: The New Worlds Years (place not given: for the author, 2020) [nonfiction: autobiography: An Accidental Life: pb/photographic]
- An Accidental Life, Volume 3, 1970-1979: The Improvident Years (place not given: for the author, 2020) [nonfiction: autobiography: An Accidental Life: pb/Charles Platt]
- An Accidental Life, Volume 4, 1980-1990: Farewell to Science Fiction (place not given: for the author, 2021) [nonfiction: autobiography: An Accidental Life: pb/photocollage]
individual titles
- The Whole-Truth Home Computer Handbook (New York: Avon Books, 1984) [nonfiction: pb/]
- Micromania: The Whole Truth About Home Computers (London: Victor Gollancz, 1984) with David Langford [nonfiction: rev vt of the above: revised by Langford for UK relevance: illus/Borin van Loon: hb/uncredited]
- When You Can Live Twice as Long, What Will You Do?; And 99 Other Questions You May Have to Answer Sooner Than you Think (New York: William Morrow, 1989) [nonfiction: hb/Vittoria Semproni]
- Loose Canon (Holicong, Pennsylvania: Cosmos Books, 2003) [nonfiction: coll: book dated 2001: pb/Charles Platt]
works as editor
series
- New Worlds 6: The Science Fiction Quarterly (London: Sphere Books, 1973) with Michael Moorcock [anth: New Worlds Quarterly: pb/Bruce Pennington]
- New Worlds #5 (New York: Avon/Equinox, 1974) with Michael Moorcock [anth: vt of the above: New Worlds Quarterly: pb/]
- New Worlds 7 (London: Sphere Books, 1974) with Hilary Bailey [anth: New Worlds Quarterly: illus/various: pb/Eddie Jones]
- New Worlds #6 (New York: Avon/Equinox, 1975) with Hilary Bailey [anth: rev vt of above: contents and illustrations re-ordered, some missing or added: New Worlds Quarterly: illus/various: pb/Mati Klarwein]
individual titles as editor
- The Complete Patchin Review (Reading, Berkshire: Ansible Editions, 2019) [nonfiction: anth: ebook: assembling all issues of The Patchin Review plus 2 additional Platt articles: edited by David Langford: na/nonpictorial]
- The Complete Patchin Review (Reading, Berkshire: Ansible Editions, 2022) [nonfiction: anth: exp of the above with 3 further Platt pieces: edited by David Langford: na/nonpictorial]
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