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.
To the Galactic Rim
Baen Books will be releasing
To the Galactic Rim: The John Grimes Saga
as a trade paperback on March 1 2011. You can preorder now from Amazon.
This includes the first four John Grimes books,
The Road To the Rim,
To Prime the Pump,
The Hard Way Up and
The Broken Cycle.
A lovely dollop of trollop
Frank Weissenborn has published an article on A Bertram Chandler in the fanzine
Steam Engine Time (March
2010). Check it out!
Listening to him, he was very much our shipmate and friend. And throughout, he stayed
true to the sea. It was a matter of respect. And of honour. And keeping the shine
on the klaxon. And at playing the host, he was very much the captain at the dinner
table. We had the pleasure of an enjoyable evening in his company — only the men
in the lounge and the women in the bed, please. We only have to remember how he
would welcome us on board, ‘Come in, this is liberty hall; you can piss on the mat
and call the cat a bastard.’ — Frank Weissenborn, 2009
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.
The Far Traveller
This novelete was published in Analog (August 1976).
This is a John Grimes story which is also included in the book of the same name.
Commander Grimes was at the eye of a storm; meaning that no matter which way he moved...