SMITH, Evelyn E.

(1927-)

   US writer and crossword-puzzle compiler who began publishing sf with "Tea Tray in the Sky" for Gal in 1952, and for about a decade published actively in the magazines; after about 1960 she appeared there only infrequently. She has also written as Delphine C. Lyons. Her first novel, The Perfect Planet (1962), is set on a planet which was once a health farm. Valley of Shadows (1968) as Delphine C. Lyons is a fantasy. Unpopular Planet (1975) - no connection to the first book - is acomparatively ambitious work, written in a sometimes passable imitation of 18th-century typographical (if not stylistic) practices and presenting thememoirs, set down long after most of the events recounted, of a human from an overpopulated future Earth whose contacts with ALIENS trying to maintain the planet as a breeding-ground for humans and other species have led to picaresque adventures, some of them sexual. The Copy Shop (1985) - again an element of SATIRE is mildly evident - places aliens in New York City; they are not noticed.

   JC

   See also: COLONIZATION OF OTHER WORLDS; WOMEN SF WRITERS.