Charles Dye

Born in San Fernando, California, on October 12, 1925, Charles Dudley Dye was an American science fiction author whose writing career was brief but productive. Reliable genre references agree that he served in the U.S. Air Force during World War II and began publishing science fiction soon afterward, breaking in with "The Last Orbit" in Amazing in February 1950.

Most of his work appeared during the early 1950s, when he published a run of short fiction in magazines and released his only novel, Prisoner in the Skull (1952). He also collaborated with fellow science fiction writer Katherine MacLean on "The Man Who Staked the Stars," a story that remains one of the titles readers still associate with him.

Dye died in 1960, ending a career that lasted less than half a decade. Even so, he is still remembered by science fiction reference works and online libraries as part of the energetic postwar magazine scene, where new writers experimented with big ideas in a fast, vivid style.