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Wise, Arthur

(1923-1983) UK drama consultant and author, most of whose works were thrillers; he also wrote as by John McArthur and under the non-sf house name Bryan Swift. Most of his sf was borderline, using genre elements to heighten the suspense. The best known of these tales was probably The Day the Queen Flew to Scotland for the Grouse Shooting (1968), about the abduction of the monarch in the context of a breakup of the United Kingdom. A second Near-Future, political novel was Who Killed Enoch Powell?: A Thriller (1970), where the assassination of that politician sets a complex thriller in motion, escalating to racial violence at Wimbledon (see Race in SF), with fascists threatening to take over the country. The displacement into sf of all his work is minimal. [JC]

Arthur Wise

born York, Yorkshire: 12 January 1923

died New York: 9 February 1983

works

• Days in the Hay (London: Cassell, 1960) as by John McArthur [hb/]
• The Little Fishes (London: Victor Gollancz, 1961) [hb/]
• How Now Brown Cow (London: Cassell, 1962) as by John McArthur [hb/]
• The Death's-Head (London: Cassell, 1962) [hb/]
• The Day the Queen Flew to Scotland for the Grouse Shooting (Dublin, Ireland: Cavalier Publishing, 1968) [hb/]
• Leatherjacket (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970) [hb/]
• Who Killed Enoch Powell? (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970) [hb/]

links

• Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Entry from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2011-current) edited by John Clute and David Langford.
Accessed 03:42 am on 13 January 2025.
<https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/wise_arthur>