Woodhouse, Martin
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1932-2011) UK physician (non-practising), entrepreneur, screenwriter and author, whose first work of sf interest seems to have been the story "The Higher Mathematics" as M C Woodhouse for Authentic Science Fiction #46 in June 1954. More significant was his collaboration, with his brother Hugh Woodhouse, as screenwriter for twenty-two of the twenty-six scripts for the 1961 first season of the weekly Television puppet series Supercar (1961-1962), Gerry Anderson's first SuperMarionation venture. The next year Woodhouse began to write scripts for The Avengers (1961-1969), and in 1963 scripted for ABC television Emerald Soup (7 25-minute episodes, 1963), an sf series involving Ecology, designed for young viewers and produced and directed bu Bill Bain. Children in a country village discover a laboratory carrying out secret radiation tests, and try to stop this programme before environmental damage ensues. The series suffered from its clash with the BBC's Doctor Who, which began two weeks later and aired at the same time.
Woodhouse is also of sf interest for the Giles Yeoman sequence of Technothrillers beginning with Tree Frog (1966) and ending with Moon Hill (1972), all of them pressing the envelope of the Near Future through tales involving the highly proficient Yeoman in making and/or tracing the effects of Inventions whose deployment influences the course of the Cold War. The Medici historical novels written with Robert Ross (1918-? ), beginning with The Medici Guns (1974), might be termed historical technothrillers in which Leonardo da Vinci's inventions – notably Weapons – help save the city-state of Florence. As an entrepreneur, Woodhouse was involved in the creation of some the first Ebooks, in 1987; his firm, Illumination Publishing, produced a number of titles before 1995. [JC/DRL]
Martin Charlton Woodhouse
born Romford, Essex: 29 August 1932
died England: 15 May 2011
works
series
Giles Yeoman
- Tree Frog (London: Heinemann, 1966) [Giles Yeoman: hb/]
- Bush Baby (New York: Coward-McCann, 1968) [Giles Yeoman: hb/]
- Mama Doll (London: Heinemann, 1972) [Giles Yeoman: hb/]
- Blue Bone (London: Heinemann, 1973) [Giles Yeoman: hb/]
- Moon Hill (London: Macmillan, 1972) [Giles Yeoman: hb/]
Medici
- The Medici Guns (London: J M Dent, 1974) with Robert Ross [Medici: hb/]
- The Medici Emerald (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1976) with Robert Ross [Medici: hb/]
- The Medici Hawks (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1978) with Robert Ross [Medici: hb/]
links
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