Alfred Coppel

Born in Oakland, California, in 1921, Alfred Coppel served as a fighter pilot in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II before turning to writing. After the war, he built a long career as an American author, publishing under his own name and also using pseudonyms including Robert Cham Gilman and Alfred Maron.

Coppel became especially known for science fiction, starting with magazine stories in the late 1940s and going on to write a large body of short fiction and novels across several genres. Alongside science fiction, he also wrote suspense and adventure fiction, which helped give his work a fast-moving, accessible style.

Many readers remember him for The Burning Mountain, an alternate-history novel imagining an invasion of Japan at the end of World War II. He died in 2004. Even now, his fiction stands out for its mix of action, speculation, and the lived experience of someone who had seen war firsthand.