Name: CHANDLER, Arthur Bertram Aged: 72
Born: March 28, 1912 Where: Aldershot, Hampshire, ENGLAND
Died: June 6, 1984 Where: New South Wales?, AUSTRALIA
Interred: _ _ _
Married: Joan ? When: _ _ _
Married 2: Susan Schlenker When: _ _ _
Awarded: Australian SF Achievement Award (The Ditmars): 1969 novel False Fatherhood, 1975 novel The Bitter Pill, and 1976 novel The Big Black Mark. Honored by the naming of The Chandler Award for outstanding Achievement in Australian Science Fiction.

Chandler was a seaman and officer in the merchant navies of England, New Zealand, and Australia for 45+ years and spent many, many long, tedious, boring, and dangerous hours at sea. That is somewhat romantic as long hours were also spent in Sydney harbor where the law required a Captain to man every vessel, including those not in current use. So the hours there were long indeed. His science fiction writing allowed him to escape on a grand scale from naval and merchant fleet restrictions...not to mention, augment his income by working two jobs simultaneously.

Chandler was not a complicated man and wrote about what he understood. So the structure of his worlds conformed to naval call and response, dealing with worlds on the edge of the galaxy connected by space going fleets. While there were lots of solo novels among his 41 published books, two main themes recurred: (1) The Commander Grimes novels (space Hornblowers), and, (2) The Rim World series. These two series overlap sometimes, but, occasionally, aren't connected at all . (Its sort of fun to see communications on board star-ships done by sending paper thru pneumatic tubes and sextants still in use.)

His first U.S. work was a short story, "This Means War!" for Astounding SF in May of 1944. Chandler had met the editor, John W. Campbell, while in New York City during early WW II and he had encouraged Chandler to write for him. Perhaps Chandler was a bit shy about writing sf as he mostly used the George Whitley pen name for these stories. Chandler may have been a better short story writer than a novelist. Among his outstanding shorter works were "Giant Killer" (1945), "Special Knowledge" (1946), "Position Line" (1949), "Fire Brand!" (1950), and "The Cage" (1957).

Chandler, being both worldly and multi-national, sold his stories the same way. Often the same story would appear within a month or two in combinations that involved British, the U.S., and Australian pulp magazines. His work was ideally suited to the needs of Donald A. Wollheim and Chandler found a steady market at Ace Books and then DAW. Chandler's works were always popular as they were designed to entertain and remain popular today.

THUMBNAIL: From a larger 1975 snapshot by Helena Binns.

PEN NAMES: George Whitley, Andrew Dunston, and S. H. M.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mine here.

OBITUARY:

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