Bennett, Alfred Gordon
Entry updated 20 October 2025. Tagged: Author.
(1901-1962) UK author, documentary film-maker and founder of Pharos Books, through which he published a fantasy, Whom the Gods Destroy (1946), which is set in northeast India, where the abduction of a young woman from a lamasery, so she can be raped, is punished by occult means. His sf novel The Demigods (1939) depicts a world menaced by giant Ants from an Underground fastness in Africa, who derive their abilities from an ancient Hive Mind resident in a globe of "force" and capable of hypnotizing humans (see Hypnosis) as well as ants. The growing threat of Fascisms of the right and the left during the 1930s gives credence to the inference that the novel was meant as Satire, and that it is an honourable addition to the range of sf novels warning about the World War Two to come. The Tibetan Secret Master at the heart of Whom the Gods Destroy (1946) derives his power from extreme longevity (see Immortality) and Magic.
Bennett's father was Arthur Bennett. [JC]
Alfred Gordon Bennett
born Warrington, Cheshire: 11 December 1901
died Colwyn Bay, Wales: 11 August 1962
works
- The Valley of Paradise (London: T Fisher Unwin, 1922) [hb/]
- The Forest of Fear (London: T Fisher Unwin, 1924) [hb/]
- The Sea of Sleep (London: T Fisher Unwin, 1926) [hb/]
- The Sea of Dreams (New York: The Macaulay Company, 1926) [vt of the above: hb/]
- The Demigods (London: Jarrolds, 1939) [hb/]
- Whom the Gods Destroy (London: Pharos Books, 1946) [pb/Barbara Heaton]
- Focus on the Unknown (London: Rider, 1952) [ostensible nonfiction: hb/]
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