MacDONALD, John D(ann)

(1916-1986)

   US writer and ex-lieutenant colonel in the US Army, known mainly for such well written thrillers as The Brass Cupcake (1950) and the 21 Travis McGee novels (1964-85), which evolved from escapist tales ofderring-do into impassioned laments for the human race and the planet. None of his sf, which began early in his career with "Cosmetics" for ASFin 1948, significantly anticipates JDM's late mood; the best of his 50 or so short stories, nearly all written 1948-53, were assembled in Other Times, Other Worlds (coll 1978). His two early sf novels, Wine of theDreamers (1951; vt Planet of the Dreamers 1953 UK) and Ballroom of the Skies (1952), were both polished and proficient adventures in PARANOID sf involving extraterrestrial manipulations of humanity, inadvertent in the first book and, in the second, as part of a winnowing process to select good leadership material. A later novel, The Girl, the Gold Watch, \& Everything (1962), is a complicated spoof adventure in which a maninherits a watch which, when correctly used, speeds up time for the owner, rendering him invisible to the people in real, apparently frozen, time, and thereby giving him great power. All 3 novels were assembled as Time and Tomorrow (omni 1980). JDM occasionally wrote sf stories under the pseudonyms John Wade Farrell and Peter Reed.

   JC/PN

   About the author: Bibliography of the Published Works of John D. MacDonald (1980) by Walter and Jean Shine.

   See also: LEISURE; PULP MAGAZINES.