Simpson, George Gaylord
Entry updated 3 June 2024. Tagged: Author.
(1902-1984) US palaeontologist and author, significant for his work on the theory of Evolution; his opposition to the theory of continental drift delayed acceptance of the obvious among scientists, though he himself eventually accepted the evidence. He is of sf interest for The Dechronization of Sam Magruder (date of composition unknown; 1996), in which through a laboratory accident the eponymous Scientist is thrown back in time from the twenty-second century (see Time Travel) without any practical or theoretical hope of return. He spends the rest of his life in the Cretaceous era, in deep solitude (see Robinsonade), incising his life story – plus his professional observations on the life of the Dinosaur – on stone tablets, which are discovered in the twentieth century and discussed at a Club-Story gathering deliberately evocative of the frame story in H G Wells's The Time Machine (1895). [JC]
George Gaylord Simpson
born Chicago, Illinois: 16 June 1902
died Tucson, Arizona: 6 October 1984
works (highly selected)
- The Dechronization of Sam Magruder (New York: St Martin's Press, 1996) [novella: date of composition unknown: introduction by Arthur C Clarke: afterword by Stephen Jay Gould: hb/Bob Bakker]
links
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