F. L. (Floyd L.) Wallace

Born in Rock Island, Illinois, in 1915, this American author wrote science fiction and mystery under the names F. L. Wallace and Floyd Wallace. He studied at the University of Iowa and also attended UCLA, then spent much of his life in California while working as both a writer and a mechanical engineer.

He is especially associated with the great mid-century science fiction magazines. His first published story, "Hideaway," appeared in Astounding, and he went on to publish widely in the 1950s. His only novel, Address: Centauri (1955), grew out of the earlier novella "Accidental Flight," and his shorter work helped build his reputation as a clever, dependable storyteller.

Reference works on the field remember him as a notable science fiction and mystery writer whose stories blended practical thinking with classic pulp-era imagination. He died in Tustin, California, on November 26, 2004.