A
(Arthur) Bertram Chandler was born in Aldershot, England in 1912, Chandler sailed
the world in every-thing from tramp steamers to troop transports before emigrating
to Australia in 1956. Here he commanded merchant vessels under the Australian and
New Zealand Flags up to his retirement in 1974.
Up until his death in 1984 he published over 40 science fiction novels and over
200 works of short fiction writing as A Bertram Chandler, George Whitley or Andrew
Dunstan. Many of the novels had a nautical theme, with the plot moved from the seas
of earth to the ships of space in the future. Many of the stories revolved around
the character of John Grimes some times referred to as “Hornblower of Space”. While
most stories are set in the future, they also have a distinctly “Australian” theme
with places and stories relating back to Australia today.
Chandler was the last master of the aircraft carrier Melbourne. Law required it
to have a master aboard for the months while it was laid up and waiting to be towed
off to Asia to be broken up for scrap, so in a sense he really was briefly the master
of the Australian navy's former flagship. Apparently he had his typewriter aboard,
and worked on his novels!
Chandler received four Australian SF Achievement Award "Ditmars" for his
novels. Nearly all of his novels were published in the USA. Two of his short stories
'The Cage' and 'Giant Killer’ are regarded as some of the best SF stories
written in the 1950's. He was also very popular in Japan winning the prestigious
SEIUN SHO, the premier Science Fiction award. The Japanese editions have some of
the best covers of any of the published editions.
Missing Chandler Story Published
A
new John Grimes story has finally been published more than 24 years after A Bertram
Chandler's death. The story is called
Grimes and the Gaijin Daimyo and
is part of the Kitty Kelly series. It is part of a new Australian Anthology called
Dreaming Again edited by Jack Dann and is a follow up to Jack Dann and
Janeen Webb's successful
Dreaming Down Under anthology. The book
has been published by Harper Voyager in Australia and and should be available in
all good bookshops as from July 2008. Dreaming Again has now be published
in the USA and Amazon has stock available using the following link
Dreaming Again: Thirty-five New Stories Celebrating the Wild Side of Australian
Fiction
)
Thanks to Paul Collins for making the story available more than 30 years after he
purchased it.
Letter
This letter was published in Science Fiction Review (October 1970).
I found especially interesting Ted White's defense of Mr. Cohen, as I did his similar defense of that gentlemen in the pages of the SFWA FORUM. I don't mind admitting that I was among the writers who screamed to high heaven when a couple of my stories were reprinted without payment in AMAZING. For the second of these my Agent finally managed to get a small cheque.
Ah, yes. Agents. How many of us know, insofar as short stories are concerned, just what rights have been sold by our representatives? I can say, truthfully, that the only time that I know just what I have sold is when I make a direct sale. One magazine publishing house in Sydney purchases World Rights, the words being printed on their cheques for material. Many years ago I told the then-editor of this magazine chain that this condition was unacceptable to me, and he told me that all I had to do was to strike out this clause, substituting First Australian Serial Rights. Since then there have been several editorial changes, but the agreement still holds good.
My last direct sale was to Harlan Ellison, for his third DANGEROUS VISIONS anthology. For this one I had to sign a contract, which sets down in black and white exactly what my entitlements are.
Getting back to Ted White - he certainly has improved AMAZING and FANTASTIC no end. I did go on buying them during their bad days, although I felt most strongly that I was not getting my money's worth. (I often wonder just who decides that some hunk of hopelessly dated crud is a "classic"...) Anyhow, now I can put down money for the magazines without feeling that it would have been far better spent on beer.
((Everyone seems to feel Ted has done a good job with the magazines except perhaps Charles Platt and definitely Harry Harrison. Harry (who dislikes Ted) Wrote in his introduction to Best SF: 1969 (Putnam's, $5.95): "The case of AMAZING and FANTASTIC is more tragic. After a brief attempt at quality and responsibility under former editor Barry M. Malzberg ("The Castle-on the Crag.," anthologized here, is from one of the last issues he edited), these magazines have sunk back to their former low-budget ways. Consisting mostly of reprinted stories from the early and bad pulp days of the magazines, interspersed with a meager handful of indifferent new stories, they are not worth serious consideration." Harry indulges in some blatant misrepresentation.))
I was intrigued by the full-page ad for VISION OF TOMORROW ((in SFR 38)), especially as I had just heard from Ron Graham, who told me that VISION dies with its October issue. And I'd been looking forward to doing a story around a Stanley Pitt cover...
((That ad bothers me, because I wonder if the subscribers' money will be refunded? I have written to Phil Harbottle, former editor, and hope to have some word for next issue of SFR.))
Don't seem to Have any more whinges or comments so will close. Sorry - I do have one more whinge (see SFR #37). The name of the sharer of my home, typewriter and ever-loving wife/secretary/chauffeuse is Whitley, not, repeat not Whitely.
A BERTRAM CHANDLER