S P A C E L I G H T
INDEX
VITAL STATISTICS
Name: McILWAIN, David
Aged: 60
Born: January 21, 1921
Where: Liverpool, England
Died: November 30, 1981
Where:London, England
Interred: _ _ _
Married: Joan Lilian Hardy
When: 1947 (div 1960)
Married 2: Clare Mary Came
When: 1961
Awarded: _ _ _
"Charles Eric Maine"
A British fan and fanzine publisher (GARGOYLE, 1940-41) turned writer. Fandom gave way to World War II when a bomb destroyed the duplicating machine one month before a notice from the RAF arrived. On June 28, 1941; McIlwain began training as a Signals Officer in the Royal Air Force. Later joined by Eric Frank Russell. 1943 saw David in the sands of North Africa.
After the war there was much to do in England, but by the early 1950s, McIlwain had returned to SF by writing radio plays, selling his first, Spaceways in 1952 to the BBC, using his 1938 fannish pen name of Charles Eric Maine. This became a popular hit, selling in turn as a novel, a magazine serial, a movie, and a TV drama. Timeliner, possibly Maine's most familiar title, also began as a radio play, The Einstein Highway. But McIlwain soon moved to the novel format where he remained prolific and successful. Movies were made of Timeslip (The Atomic Man - 1955) and Escapement (The Electronic Monster - 1957). Charles Eric Maine, like his friend Eric Frank Russell, found an eager American market for all SF works produced.
PEN NAMES: Charles Eric Maine (SF), Robert Rayner (Mystery), and Robert Wade (general fiction).
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mine here.
BIOGRAPHY: Contemporary Authors, Vol 109
OBITUARY:
