Everett B. Cole

Born in Jamestown, New York, in 1910, Everett B. Cole was an American science fiction writer who also spent many years in the U.S. Army. He served in World War II, including the Omaha Beach landing, and later worked as a signal maintenance and property officer before retiring from military service in 1960.

After that, he earned a bachelor’s degree in math and physics and went on to teach math, physics, and chemistry at a Texas high school until a second retirement in the mid-1970s. That mix of military experience and technical training helped shape the clear, energetic feel of his fiction.

Cole began publishing science fiction in the early 1950s, with work appearing in Astounding and related magazines. He is especially remembered for the Philosophical Corps stories, which blend space-opera adventure with humor and argument, and for a body of short fiction that gave him a lasting place in classic American SF.