Rimmer, Robert H
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1917-2001) US author who became famous with the Harrad sequence beginning with the nonfantastic The Harrad Experiment (1966), notable for its impassioned advocacy of Sex seen as almost always beneficial and liberating, regardless of the sexual orientation and number of partners involved; he also advocated less restrictive definitions of marriage, causing some of his readers in the sf field to associate his advocacies with those articulated by Robert A Heinlein in Stranger in a Strange Land (1961). The sequel to this tale, The Premar Experiments (1975), edges into the Near Future, where some of the dreamwork in the first volume is made actual. Rimmer's other work of direct sf interest includes The Rebellion of Yale Marratt (1964), an examination of bigamy edging into the fantastic; The Zolotov Affair (1967), a kind of caper whose male protagonist's Invention, of a formula that changes lead into gold, cannot win out against zany sex; Proposition 31 (1968), which features a Near Future California referendum to give polyandry legal sanction; Love Me Tomorrow (1978), set in the 1990s where a "people's capitalism" revolutionizes sexual relations, creating an "achievable" Utopia inspired by Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888); and The Resurrection of Ann Hutchinson (1987), in which an early Feminist is reincarnated in the twentieth century. [JC]
Robert Henry Rimmer
born Dorchester, Massachusetts: 14 March 1917
died Quincy, Massachusetts: 1 August 2001
works
series
Harrad
- The Harrad Experiment (Los Angeles, California: Sherbourne Press, 1966) [Harrad: hb/]
- The Premar Experiments (New York: New American Library, 1975) [Harrad: hb/]
individual titles
- The Rebellion of Yale Marratt (Boston, Massachusetts: Challenge Press, 1964) [hb/]
- The Zolotov Affair (Los Angeles, California: Sherbourne Press, 1967) [hb/]
- The Gold Lovers (New York: New American Library/Signet Books, 1976) [vt of the above: pb/]
- Proposition 31 (New York: New American Library, 1968) [hb/]
- Love Me Tomorrow (New York: New American Library/Signet Books, 1978) [pb/]
- The Resurrection of Ann Hutchinson (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1987) [hb/]
links
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