author
Clyde Beck
1912–1986
A lively early voice in science fiction fandom, he helped shape how readers talked and argued about the genre long before it became mainstream. His work mixes pulp-era imagination with some of the earliest serious criticism of American science fiction.
1 Audiobook
Collision Orbit
by Clyde Beck
About the author
Born in California in 1912, Clyde F. Beck was an American science fiction writer, fan, and critic whose work reaches back to the early pulp-magazine era. He began publishing genre fiction with "When the Moons Met!" in Wonder Stories in 1930.
Beck is especially remembered for Hammer and Tongs (1937), a pioneering work of science fiction criticism that later commentators have described as the first book-length critical study devoted to American science fiction. He was also part of early fandom activity connected with his brother Claire P. Beck and the small-press world around The Science Fiction Critic and Futile Press.
Though he published only a small number of stories, Beck holds an interesting place in genre history: he was there near the beginning, writing both fiction and criticism when science fiction was still defining itself. That makes him a rewarding author for listeners curious about the roots of modern SF.