Baxter, John
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author, Editor.
(1939- ) Australian author, who has also lived and worked in the UK and USA. He began publishing sf with "Vendetta's End" for Science Fiction Adventures (UK) #29 in November 1962, and for the next four years appeared primarily in New Worlds; he wrote some stories with Ron Smith (1936-1987) under the joint pseudonym Martin Loran (Loran being Smith's middle name). His sf novel, The Off-Worlders (June-July 1966 New Worlds as "The God Killers"; 1966 dos US; vt The God Killers 1968 Aus) portrays the superstition-ridden ex-colony planet of Merryland and a search for the lost knowledge it contains. The Hermes Fall (1978) depicts with some vigour the Disaster created when an Asteroid strikes the Earth. Increasingly, Baxter has concentrated on writing on the cinema, his work in this genre including the informative, though not always accurate, Science Fiction in the Cinema (1970), and 11 titles unconnected with sf. The Fire Came By (1976), written with Thomas A Atkins, a science-fact book containing some almost-sf speculations, tells of the great Siberian explosion of 1908. Steven Spielberg: The Unauthorized Biography (1996) and Mythmaker: The Life and Works of George Lucas (1999) are competent popular studies. As editor Baxter produced The Pacific Book of Australian Science Fiction (anth 1968) and its sequel, under various titles (see below). A further biography of sf importance is The Inner Man: The Life of J.G. Ballard (2011). [JC/PN]
see also: Cinema.
John Martin Baxter
born Sydney, New South Wales: 14 December 1939
works
- The Off-Worlders (New York: Ace Books, 1966) [dos: pb/Kelly Freas]
- The God Killers (Melbourne, Victoria: Horwitz Publications, 1968) [vt of above: pb/Roderick Hulsbergen]
- The Hermes Fall (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978) [hb/Paul Bacon]
- Torched! (London: Grafton, 1986) with John Brosnan, writing together as James Blackstone [horror about spontaneous combustion: pb/]
nonfiction (selected)
- Science Fiction in the Cinema (London: Trinity, 1970) [nonfiction: Cinema: hb/]
- The Fire Came By (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1976) with Thomas A Atkins [nonfiction: hb/]
- Steven Spielberg: The Unauthorized Biography (London: HarperCollins, 1996) [nonfiction: Steven Spielberg: hb/]
- Stanley Kubrick: A Biography (London: HarperCollins, 1997) [nonfiction: Stanley Kubrick: hb/photographic]
- Mythmaker: The Life and Works of George Lucas (New York: Avon Books, 1999) [nonfiction: George Lucas: hb/Hiro Kimura]
- The Inner Man: The Life of J.G. Ballard (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2011) [nonfiction: J G Ballard: hb/photographic]
works as editor
- The Pacific Book of Australian SF (Sydney, New South Wales: Angus and Robertson, 1968) [anth: vt of the above: pb/]
- The Pacific Book of Science Fiction (Sydney, New South Wales: Angus and Robertson, 1969) [anth: vt of the above: pb/]
- The First Pacific Book of Science Fiction (Sydney, New South Wales: Angus and Robertson, 1973) [anth: vt of the above: pb/Wes Stacey]
- Australian Science Fiction 1 (Sydney, New South Wales: Angus and Robertson, 1975) [anth: vt of the above: pb/Ian Lines]
- The Second Pacific Book of Science Fiction (Sydney: New South Wales, Angus and Robertson, 1971) [anth: hb/Wes Stacy]
- The Second Pacific Book of Australian Science Fiction (Sydney: New South Wales, Angus and Robertson, 1971) [anth: vt of the above: hb/]
links
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