Reginald Alec Martin (1900-1971) wrote more than thrity novels under the nom-de-plume E. C. Eliot. Iain M Banks admits that Martin’s novels were in part the inspiration for his childhood addiction to the science fiction genre.
To make a huge generalisation, there are two extremes of sci-fi: Hard science, typified by Arthur C Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Greg Egan. Alternativly there are the science-fantasists who include George Lucas and Garth Marenghi. Long before today’s men of ideas, Martin’s works were perhaps the first to brilliantly fuse the two opposing genres.
Martin’s compelling ‘Kemlo’ series first published between 1954 and 1963 shocked the world of science fiction. Each book comined a fast paced plot with realistic dialogue and something of a rarity in these cost-cutting times: captivating illustrations by former ‘Eagle’ artist Bruce Cornwell.
Martin was the Gene Roddenberry of his day - accurately predicting technology almost half a decade before it became reality. His descriptions of life aboard a space-station read like a NASA manual. He was also the first to predict that children born in outer-space might be able to survive unprotected in the vacuum of outer-space.
Keep a look out for the next writeup in this series, where co-blogger andy will review Norman Spinrad’s life-altering science-fiction masterwerk ‘Agent of Chaos’.
More than 50 years before the NASA space-scooter project this artist’s impression proves once again that Martin’s foresight was flawless. In the background you can see a toroidal space-station which was possibly the inspiration for the designs in Kubric’s adaptation of 2001.
It may look like a massacre, but these are no ordinary kids - able to survive in the vast nothingness of outer-space because they were born on a space-station. As yet no children have been born higher than the cruising altitude of an air-liner, so martin’s most controvercial theory remains untested.
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