COPPEL, Alfred (Jose Jr)

(1921-)

   Prolific US author (and wartime fighter pilot) who has written also as Robert Cham Gilman and Sol Galaxan (for 1 story only, 1953). He began publishing sf with "Age of Unreason" for ASF in 1947, and published a good deal of magazine fiction in the next decade, though he was in fact producing considerably more in other genres with such action novels as Hero Driver (1954). His first sf novel was Dark December(1960), an extremely effective post- HOLOCAUST quest story set in a nuclear-war-devastated USA and featuring the protagonist's search for his lost family. As Gilman, AC published the Rhada SPACE-OPERA sequence for tough, older children: The Rebel of Rhada (1968), The Navigator of Rhada (1969) and The Starkahn of Rhada (1970) are not easy reading, and neither is the prequel The Warlock of Rhada (1985). The Burning Mountain: A Novel of the Invasion of Japan (1983) embodies an orthodox alternate-history (ALTERNATE WORLDS) premise in thriller dress, told grippingly: the A-bomb fizzles, necessitating a land invasion of Japan to end WWII; after some delay, a rejuvenated bomb stops the mayhem in 1946. Although AC's energies have been, for most of his career, focused on non-sf projects, the recent and ongoing Goldenwing Cycle- comprising Glory (1993) and Glory's War (1995), with further volumes projected - is a series of glowingly mature space opera tales structured around the travels of the eponymous FTL ship, itself intricately realized. AC's return to sf has been revelatory.

   JC

   Other works: Four marginal political thrillers set in the immediate future: Thirty-Four East (1974) The Dragon (1977); The Hastings Conspiracy (1980); The Apocalypse Brigade (1981).

   See also: GALACTIC EMPIRES.