author
Edwin Balmer
1883–1959
Best remembered for the fast-moving disaster novel When Worlds Collide, he helped shape early American science fiction while also building a strong career in mystery fiction and magazine editing. His work mixes big ideas, suspense, and the polished storytelling of a seasoned newspaperman.
8 Audiobooks
The mating impulse
by Edwin Balmer
Ruth of the U. S. A.
by Edwin Balmer
Decidedly Odd
by Edwin Balmer, William MacHarg
The Indian Drum
by William MacHarg, Edwin Balmer
Keeban
by Edwin Balmer
The Blind Man's Eyes
by William MacHarg, Edwin Balmer
The Man Higher Up
by Edwin Balmer, William MacHarg
The achievements of Luther Trant
by Edwin Balmer, William MacHarg
About the author
Born in Chicago in 1883, Edwin Balmer studied at Northwestern and Harvard before going into journalism. He worked for the Chicago Tribune and later became a magazine editor, a background that gave his fiction a brisk, clear style.
He wrote mysteries as well as science fiction, sometimes in collaboration with other authors. Today he is most closely linked with Philip Wylie, with whom he wrote When Worlds Collide and After Worlds Collide, influential early catastrophe novels that brought cosmic-scale danger to a wide popular audience.
Balmer also had a long connection to American magazine culture, including editorial work at Redbook. He died in 1959, but his reputation endures through stories that helped bridge adventure fiction, mystery, and modern science fiction.