John Victor Peterson

John Victor Peterson was an American science-fiction author who began publishing professionally with “Martyrs Don’t Mind Dying” in Astounding in January 1938. He continued writing for several science-fiction magazines through 1959, producing stories centered on scientific discovery, space travel, political satire, and the unexpected consequences of new technology.

Peterson sometimes collaborated under the shared pseudonym Victor Valding with Allen Ingvald Benson. His only full-length novel, Rock the Big Rock, appeared in 1970, while stories such as “Lost in the Future,” “Classified Object,” “The Oddly Elusive Brunette,” and “Political Application” have been preserved through Project Gutenberg.