Caidin, Martin

Entry updated 4 November 2024. Tagged: Author.

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(1927-1997) US pilot, aerospace specialist and author who wrote over 80 nonfiction books, some for the juvenile market, mostly on aviation and space exploration. These began withJets, Rockets and Guided Missiles (1950; rev vtRockets and Missiles1954) with David C Cooke and continued with such texts asWar for the Moon (1959; vtRace for the Moon1960) andI Am Eagle (1962) with G S Titov, the Soviet astronaut. Caidin's own firm, Martin Caidin Associates, was designed to provide information and other services to radio and television in the areas of his special knowledge; he founded the American Astronautical Society in 1953.

Caidin began publishing sf withThe Long Night (1956), aHolocaust andPost-Holocaust tale which recounts in detail the proactive response of the citizens of one of the 100 cities destroyed in a sudden attack which has ended theCold War. He gained considerable success withMarooned (1964; rev1969), later filmed asMarooned (1969) directed by John Sturges and starring Gregory Peck. Like much of his fiction,Marooned deals with realistically depictedNear-Future crises in space, in this case the need to rescue an astronaut trapped in orbit; its depiction of international co-operation has been credited with inspiring the 1975 US-USSR Apollo-Soyuz joint mission. The film features three astronauts rather than one (with the added drama of heroicSuicide when oxygen supplies run low), and Caidin revised the novel accordingly: the 1969 version is thus a kind ofTie.

Four Came Back (1968) deals with human difficulties (and a mysterious plague) aboard a space platform. The first volume of hisCyborg sequence – the full series comprisesCyborg (1972),Operation Nuke (1973),High Crystal (1974) andCyborg IV (1975) – served as inspiration and basis for the successful television seriesTheSix Million Dollar Man (1973-1978) and its spin-offTheBionic Woman (1976-1978); a later story,ManFac (1981) also presents an enforced intimacy between human and machine in unambiguously positive terms; the sense that humans should and shall command this interface marks him as a writer of the twentieth century. Caidin also produced the original story for the unsuccessful series pilotExo-Man (1977), featuringPowered Armour as a variation on the cyborg theme.

Caidin's stories combined considerable storytelling drive with expertly integrated technical information, and tend to be rather more convincing, therefore, than the television and film derivations they have inspired. [JC]

Martin Caidin

born New York: 14 September 1927

died Tallahassee, Florida: 24 March 1997

works

series

Cyborg

Cyborg (New York: Arbor House,1972) [Cyborg: hb/Robert Antler]
Operation Nuke (New York: Arbor House,1973) [Cyborg: hb/Robert Antler]
High Crystal (New York: Arbor House,1974) [Cyborg: hb/Robert Antler]
Cyborg IV (New York: Arbor House,1975) [Cyborg: hb/Robert Antler]

Messiah Stone

The Messiah Stone (New York: Baen Books,1986) [Messiah Stone: pb/DavidMattingly]
Dark Messiah (New York: Baen Books,1990) [Messiah Stone: hb/KenKelly]

Indiana Jones

Indiana Jones and the Sky Pirates (New York: Bantam Books,1993) [tie:Indiana Jones: pb/Drew Struzan]
Indiana Jones and the White Witch (New York: Bantam Books,1993) [tie:Indiana Jones: pb/Drew Struzan]

individual titles

The Long Night (New York: Dodd, Mead,1956) [hb/]
Marooned (New York: E P Dutton,1964) [hb/]
- Marooned (New York: Bantam Books,1969) [rev of the above as film tie: pb/]
No Man's World (New York: E P Dutton,1967) [hb/Fred L Wolff]
The Last Fathom (New York: Meredith Press,1967) [hb/Bob Abbett]
Four Came Back (New York: McKay,1968) [hb/]
The God Machine (New York: E P Dutton,1968) [hb/Robert Korn]
The Mendelov Conspiracy (New York: Meredith Press,1969) [hb/Carl Smith]
- Encounter Three (New York: Pinnacle Books,1978) [vt of the above: pb/Paul Stinson]
Anytime, Anywhere (New York: E P Dutton,1969) [hb/]
The Cape (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company,1971) [hb/Al Nagy]
Almost Midnight (New York: William Morrow and Company,1971) [hb/]
Maryjane Tonight at Angels Twelve (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company,1972) [hb/]
Three Corners to Nowhere (New York: Bantam Books,1975) [pb/]
Whip (Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Company,1976) [hb/]
Aquarius Mission (New York: Bantam Books,1978) [pb/Lou Feck]
Jericho 52 (New York: Dell Publishing,1979) [pb/]
The Final Countdown (New York: Bantam Books,1980) [tie to the filmTheFinal Countdown: pb/]
Star Bright (New York: Bantam Books,1980) [pb/Blossom]
Manfac (New York: Dell Books,1981) [1979 edition announced but not released: pb/]
Killer Station (New York: Baen Books,1985) [pb/DavidMattingly]
Zoboa (New York: Baen Books,1986) [pb/DavidMattingly]
Exit Earth (New York: Baen Books,1987) [pb/DavidMattingly]
Prison Ship (New York: Baen Books,1989) [pb/DavidMattingly]
Beamriders! (New York: Baen Books,1989) [pb/DavidMattingly]
- Beamriders (London: Pan Books,1990) [vt of the above: pb/ChrisMoore]
Buck Rogers: A Life in the Future (Wisconsin: TSR,1995) [tie:Buck Rogers: hb/Larry Elmore]

nonfiction

Jets, Rockets and Guided Missiles (New York: Robert M McBride,1950) with David C Cooke [nonfiction: hb/]
- Rockets and Missiles (New York: Robert M McBride,1954) with David C Cooke [nonfiction: rev vt of the above: hb/]
Worlds in Space (New York: Henry Holt,1954) [nonfiction: hb/]
War for the Moon (New York: E P Dutton,1959) [nonfiction: hb/]
- Race for the Moon (London: William Kimber,1960) [vt of the above: hb/]
I Am Eagle (Indianapolis, Indiana: Bobbs Merrill,1962) with G S Titov [nonfiction: hb/]
Destination Mars: In Art, Myth, and Science (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company,1972) with Jay Barbree and Susan Wright [nonfiction:Mars: illus/various: hb/photograph from NASA]
Ghosts of the Air: True Stories of Aerial Hauntings; Revealed Bizarre Accounts of the Supernatural from the Pilots Who Lived to Tell Them (New York: Bantam Books,1991) [nonfiction: pb/]
Destination Mars in Art, Myth and Science (New York: Penguin Studio,1997) with Jay Barbree and SusanWright [nonfiction:Mars: not the same as the 1972 title see above: hb/]