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White, Ted

Entry updated 23 June 2025. Tagged: Author, Editor, Fan.

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Working name of US editor and author Theodore Edwin White (1938-    ), who has also written as by Ron Archer, Norman Edwards and William C Johnstone. After working as assistant editor for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 1963-1968, he became the sometimes controversial editor of Amazing Stories and Fantastic 1969-1979; he noticeably improved both magazines, buying original stories and artwork, phasing out reprints, contributing sometimes lengthy editorials and emphasizing matters relating to sf Fandom including lively letter columns and Fanzine reviews. He later edited Heavy Metal 1979-1980 and Stardate 1985-1986 (with David Bischoff). White is known, too, for the many chatty, aggressive, self-defensive and polemical letters he published in such fanzines as The Alien Critic, and for his "Uffish Thots" column in Algol, which had the same qualities, as did his editorials in Amazing and Fantastic. These editorials were eventually collected as The Amazing Editorials (coll 2023) and The Fantastic Editorials (coll 2023), each volume also including White's book reviews for the relevant magazine. He won a Hugo as Best Fan Writer in 1968. For radio, under the name of Dr Progresso, he presented a weekly programme from 1977 to 1979 for WGTB in Washington, District of Columbia, advocating and featuring progressive rock.

His writing career began with "Phoenix" in Amazing for February 1963 with Marion Zimmer Bradley; this became part of Phoenix Prime (fixup 1966), the first of his Qanar series of quest tales, which continued with The Sorceress of Qar (1966), where a good Superman fights bad supermen, and Star Wolf! (1971). His first novel was a Time-Travel tale, Invasion from 2500 (1964) with Terry Carr, together writing as Norman Edwards. Most of White's subsequent titles are adventure sf for Young Adult readers, probably the most successful being the The Secret of the Marauder Satellite (1967), a well-received tale very much in the vein of Robert A Heinlein's novels for younger readers; the young protagonist is assigned to Earth-orbit Space Station duty, disposing of no longer functional satellites, and complications ensue when the titular example proves to be a dangerously energy-sucking device built by Aliens. Further such titles are No Time Like Tomorrow (1969) and Trouble on Project Ceres (1971). In his capacity as editor of Amazing, White also wrote an ending for the Philip K Dick serial "A. Lincoln, Simulacrum" (November 1969-January 1970 Amazing), though Dick's own ending was restored when the novel was published in book form as We Can Build You (1972). Lost in Space (1967; vt Irwin Allen's Lost in Space: An Exciting Lost Adventure 2018) as by Ron Archer with Dave Van Arnam is a Tie to the Television series Lost in Space (1965-1968).

White's two novels of greatest distinction are perhaps The Jewels of Elsewhen (1967), a vividly imagined tale of strife among the Dimensions, and By Furies Possessed (March-May 1970 Amazing; 1970), a tale of Parasitism in which the invading Aliens turn out to be symbionts.

Later Fanzines include the informal Pong (40 issues 1980-1992) and the ambitious Blat! (4 issues plus supplements 1993-1994), both co-edited with Dan Steffan. For his long-term contributions to Fandom he received the FAAn Award for lifetime achievement in 2010. [JC/PN/DRL]

see also: Cities; Invasion; Science-Fiction Five-Yearly; SF Magazines; Startling Mystery Stories; Worldcon.

Theodore Edwin White

born Washington, District of Columbia: 4 February 1938

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Tanner

Quanar

Captain America

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works as editor

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