Edwin K. Sloat

Born in 1895 and based for many years in Fort Madison, Iowa, he worked as a newspaperman, spent time with the U.S. Post Office, and also led a band. He was educated at the State Normal College in Oklahoma and began publishing science fiction in 1928, during the genre's early pulp-magazine boom.

Over the next several years, he placed stories with major early science fiction magazines, including Amazing Stories, Wonder Stories, and Astounding. His best-known work is often cited as The Space Rover (1932), a lively adventure story that later readers have noted for anticipating the now-familiar idea of the space freighter.

Although his period in science fiction was fairly brief, his work belongs to an important moment in the history of the field, when writers and editors were still inventing many of its basic patterns. He died in 1986, leaving behind a small but notable body of early speculative fiction.