author
Morrison Colladay
b. 1877
A little-known early pulp writer, he published imaginative science fiction in the late 1920s and early 1930s, including the disaster tale When the Moon Fell. He also worked as a publisher and salesman, which gives his brief fiction career an especially curious, old-magazine-era feel.
1 Audiobook
When the moon fell
by Morrison Colladay
About the author
Charles Morrison Colladay, usually published as Morrison Colladay, was an American publisher, salesman, and author born in Sea Grove, New Jersey, on February 9, 1877. Reliable reference sources identify him as the likely person behind the byline and note that some older records may have confused him with a different Charles Colladay.
His fiction career seems to have been small but memorable. He may have made his start with "Spirit Trails" in Ghost Stories in 1928, and he went on to publish work in pulp magazines such as Wonder Stories and Amazing Stories. His best-known book-length appearance is When the Moon Fell (1929), a Hugo Gernsback science-fiction chapbook about the Moon crashing toward Earth.
Not much else about his personal life is easy to confirm, and even his death date remains uncertain in major genre references. That mystery adds to his appeal: he survives mainly through the wild energy of early magazine science fiction, where even a writer with only a handful of stories could leave behind a vivid idea or two.