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Reginald Bretnor | |
|---|---|
| Born | Alfred Reginald Kahn (1911-07-30)July 30, 1911 |
| Died | July 22, 1992(1992-07-22) (aged 80) |
Reginald Bretnor (bornAlfred Reginald Kahn; July 30, 1911 – July 22, 1992)[1] was an Americanscience fiction editor and author, and contributor on warfare and other subjects, who published substantial work between the 1950s and 1980s. Bretnor worked extensively both to write science fiction and to edit science and science fiction-related compendia (e.g., his trilogy of symposia beginning withScience Fiction Today and Tomorrow: A Discursive Symposium (1975),[2][3][4][5] and he edited some of the earliest books to consider science fiction from the perspective ofliterary theory and criticism.[according to whom?][not verified in body] His non-fiction included works on military history, theory, andfuturology (e.g., his trilogy onThe Future of War, beginning 1979),[6][7][8] as well as on public affairs.[not verified in body] Most of Bretnor's own fiction, science fiction and otherwise, was in short story form, and often featured whimsical story lines or ironic plot twists.[not verified in body]
Reginald Bretnor was born on July 30, 1911, inVladivostok,[1] in theRussian empire.[9] Bretnor's father, Grigory Kahn,[citation needed] has alternatively been described as a "Latvian Jewish banker",[1] and aRussian Jew,[citation needed] and his mother, her name not yet identified in a biographical source, alternatively as an English governess,[1] and one born British that became a Russian subject.[citation needed] Bretnor's family left Siberia for Japan, spending from 1917 to 1920 there,[1] then moving toSan Diego, California. Al least one other source states it was his mother that settled them—she, and the children Reginald and Margaret—in the United States, in 1920.[verification needed]
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According to papers in the SOHS Archives, Bretnor's military background included service in the last cavalry unit in the U.S. Army. Health issues led to his discharge in August 1941. He tried to reenlist in 1942, but was rejected. He was hired by theOffice of War Information to write propaganda to be sent to Japan, and papers related to his work are held in the SOHS Archives. After World War II, Bretnor worked for the U.S. State Department until ill health once again caused him to resign.
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Bretnor contributed substantial work as an Americanscience fiction author and editor between the 1950s and 1980s.[citation needed] As well, Bretnor worked extensively to edit science and science fiction-related compendia,[2][3][4][5] and he edited some of the earliest books to consider science fiction from the perspective ofliterary theory and criticism.[according to whom?][citation needed]
Bretnor wrote and edited extensively in the area of non-fiction, including substantial works on military theory,[6][full citation needed][10][full citation needed][7][full citation needed][8][full citation needed] and some on public affairs.[citation needed] He wrote multiple articles,[citation needed] including on cats, and he translatedLes Chats, the first known book about cats, written byMoncrif in 1727.[1]
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Reginald Bretnor organised and edited several substantial volumes, inviting leading SF authors and science writers to contributing essays to his virtual symposia,[13] including the following, discussing the science fiction genre:
Further volumes Bretnor wrote or organised, again leading to substantial volumes, were on the subject of the military and war.[citation needed] In 1969, Bretnor publishedDecisive Warfare.[6] Largely unnoticed by his science fiction readership and foreshadowing hisFuture at War series in 1979-1980,[citation needed] it proved him a scholar of varied talents.[according to whom?][citation needed] His collectionOf Force and Violence and Other Imponderables: Essays on War, Politics, and Government was published in 1992,[citation needed] the year of his death.
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Under the pseudonymGrendel Briarton (an anagram of Reginald Bretnor), he published a series of over eighty science-fiction themedshaggy-dogvignettes featuring the time-traveling hero Ferdinand Feghoot. Known as "Feghoots", the stories involved Feghoot resolving a situation encountered while traveling through time and space (à laDoctor Who) with a bad pun. In one example, he explained his inability to pay his dues for a Sherlock Holmes fan society by turning out his empty pockets and declaring "share lack". In his adventures, Feghoot worked for the Society for the Aesthetic Re-Arrangement of History and traveled via a device that had no name but was typographically represented as the ")(". In 1980,The Compleat Feghoot collected all of Bretnor's Feghoots published up to that time and included a selection of winners and honorable mentions from a contest run byThe Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. The book is, as of 2006, out of print and very rare.
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Bretnor also wrote nonfiction articles for thesurvivalist newsletterP.S. Letter, edited byMel Tappan.[citation needed]
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Brentor was married to Helen Harding, a translator and U.C. Berkeley librarian, from 1948 until her death in 1967.[citation needed] He subsequently married Rosalie,[when?] whom he referred to in a letter in the Southern Oregon Historical Society Archives as Rosalie McShane, although she wrote under the name Rosalie Bodrero.[citation needed]
Brentnor died at the age of 80, inMedford, Oregon, on July 22, 1992.[citation needed]
TheChurch of Satan website alleges that Bretnor was an early associate ofAnton Szandor LaVey before his founding of theChurch of Satan, and that Bretnor and other science fiction authors were members of LaVey's "Order of the Trapezoid" in the early 1950s.[16][dubious –discuss]
