author
Ralph Williams
1914–1959
A little-known pulp-era science fiction writer, he published a small but memorable body of work in magazines like Astounding. His life seems to have been as unusual as his fiction, stretching from Illinois to remote Alaska.
3 Audiobooks
About the author
Ralph Williams was the pen name of Ralph William Slone (1914–1959), an American science fiction writer. Reliable reference sources agree that he published nearly a dozen stories between 1940 and 1959, mainly in the magazine Astounding and other science-fiction pulps of the period.
Biographical details are limited, but available sources place his birth in Effingham, Illinois, and his later life in Alaska. Accounts of his death say he died in 1959 in a fishing accident in Kachemak Bay, Alaska, which has helped give him the air of a fascinating, half-hidden figure in mid-century genre history.
Although he never became a household name, Williams is still remembered by science fiction readers for stories such as Cat and Mouse, which kept his name alive long after his short career ended. The small amount known about him adds to the appeal: he remains one of those magazine-era writers whose work outlasted the details of his public life.