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Reginald Bretnor

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Template:Short description Template:Refimprove Template:Infobox person Reginald Bretnor (born Alfred Reginald Kahn; July 30, 1911 – July 22, 1992)<ref name=BioBretnorDotCom/> was an American science 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 with Science Fiction Today and Tomorrow: A Discursive Symposium (1975),<ref name = SFcompendium1/><ref name=SFcompendium2/><ref name=SFcompendium3/><ref name="MSF_1979"/> and he edited some of the earliest books to consider science fiction from the perspective of literary theory and criticism.Template:Says whoTemplate:Citation needed lead His non-fiction included works on military history, theory, and futurology (e.g., his trilogy on The Future of War, beginning 1979),<ref name=Decisive/><ref name=TFaWIImars/><ref name=TFaWIIIorion/> as well as on public affairs.Template:Citation needed lead 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.Template:Citation needed lead

Early life and education

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Reginald Bretnor was born on July 30, 1911, in Vladivostok,<ref name=BioBretnorDotCom>Template:Cite web</ref> in the Russian empire.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia This citation establishes that the political structure of which Vladivostok was a part, in 1911, was the Russian empire. Note, this work is properly cited, indicating the author given at the source. Wikipedia's red-labeling of this as an error is a shortcoming of their system.</ref> Bretnor's father, Grigory Kahn,Template:Cn has alternatively been described as a "Latvian Jewish banker",<ref name=BioBretnorDotCom/> and a Russian Jew,Template:Cn and his mother, her name not yet identified in a biographical source, alternatively as an English governess,<ref name=BioBretnorDotCom/> and one born British that became a Russian subject.Template:Cn Bretnor's family left Siberia for Japan, spending from 1917 to 1920 there,<ref name=BioBretnorDotCom/> then moving to San 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.Template:Verification needed

Military and governmental service

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Template:Unreferenced section 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 the Office 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.

Literary career

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Template:Refimprove section Template:Expand section Bretnor contributed substantial work as an American science fiction author and editor between the 1950s and 1980s.Template:Cn As well, Bretnor worked extensively to edit science and science fiction-related compendia,<ref name = SFcompendium1/><ref name=SFcompendium2/><ref name=SFcompendium3/><ref name="MSF_1979"/> and he edited some of the earliest books to consider science fiction from the perspective of literary theory and criticism.Template:Says whoTemplate:Cn

Bretnor wrote and edited extensively in the area of non-fiction, including substantial works on military theory,<ref name=Decisive>Template:Cite bookTemplate:Full</ref>Template:Full<ref name=TFaWIthor>Template:Cite bookTemplate:Full</ref>Template:Full<ref name=TFaWIImars>Template:Cite bookTemplate:Full</ref>Template:Full<ref name=TFaWIIIorion>Template:Cite bookTemplate:Full</ref>Template:Full and some on public affairs.Template:Cn He wrote multiple articles,Template:Cn including on cats, and he translated Les Chats, the first known book about cats, written by Moncrif in 1727.<ref name=BioBretnorDotCom/>

Bibliography

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Papa Schimmelhorn series

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Symposia on science fiction

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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,<ref name="Nicol1974">Template:Cite web</ref> including the following, discussing the science fiction genre:

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Further volumes Bretnor wrote or organised, again leading to substantial volumes, were on the subject of the military and war.Template:Cn In 1969, Bretnor published Decisive Warfare.<ref name=Decisive/> Largely unnoticed by his science fiction readership and foreshadowing his Future at War series in 1979-1980,Template:Cn it proved him a scholar of varied talents.Template:Says whoTemplate:Cn His collection Of Force and Violence and Other Imponderables: Essays on War, Politics, and Government was published in 1992,Template:Cn the year of his death.

  • Decisive Warfare: A Study in Military Theory (1969, author).<ref name=Decisive/>Template:Full
  • The Future at War I: Thor's Hammer (1979, editor).<ref name=TFaWIthor/>Template:Full
  • The Future at War II: The Spear of Mars (1980, editor).<ref name=TFaWIImars/>Template:Full
  • The Future at War III: Orion's Sword (1980, editor).<ref name=TFaWIIIorion/>Template:Full
  • Of Force and Violence and Other Imponderables: Essays on War, Politics, and Government (1992, editor).Template:Cn

Other fiction works

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Ferdinand Feghoot series

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Template:Unreferenced section Under the pseudonym Grendel Briarton (an anagram of Reginald Bretnor), he published a series of over eighty science-fiction themed shaggy-dog vignettes 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 la Doctor 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 by The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. The book is, as of 2006, out of print and very rare.

Other writings

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Template:Expand section Bretnor also wrote nonfiction articles for the survivalist newsletter P.S. Letter, edited by Mel Tappan.Template:Cn

Personal life

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Template:Expand section Brentor was married to Helen Harding, a translator and U.C. Berkeley librarian, from 1948 until her death in 1967.Template:Cn He subsequently married Rosalie,Template: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.Template:Cn

Brentnor died at the age of 80, in Medford, Oregon, on July 22, 1992.Template:Cn

The Church of Satan website alleges that Bretnor was an early associate of Anton Szandor LaVey before his founding of the Church of Satan, and that Bretnor and other science fiction authors were members of LaVey's "Order of the Trapezoid" in the early 1950s.<ref>Template:Cite webTemplate:Better source</ref>Template:Dubious

See also

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Further reading

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References

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