Wilson, Richard (1920 - 1987)
As a SF writer and a journalist, one can definatly see the close, brisk, reporter like style in his story "Transitory Island". Richard Wilson was the dirctor for the News Bureau for Syracuse University during the later 1970's. His frist story, "Murder from Mars" was published in Astonishing Stories in 1940; in this same issue he collaborated with C. M. Kornbluth under the house name of Ivar Towers, in "Stepsons of Mars". A later Towers story was by Wilson alone, "The Man Without a Planet". He later used the pseudonym of Edward Halibut when he published "Course of Empire" (1956). He was called to service during WWII, but after 1950 he became a prolific writer of pulp stories. His first novel came out in 1955 The Girls From Planet 5, where Amazon aliens invade the earth. Another novel, And Then the Town Took Off, came out in 1960. Much of his early fiction can be found in Those Idiots From Earth, a collection from 1957, and Time Out For Tomorrow, another collection from 1962. In 1968, he won a Nebula award for the novellette "Mother to the World".
Go to the online Cosmic Science Fiction to view "Tansitory Island"
From:
Nicholls, Peter. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. AN illustration from A to Z. Granada Publishing. New York, NY. 1979.