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EspañolMURRAY LEINSTER
'Murray Leinster' (June 16, 1896 in Norfolk, Virginia- June 8, 1975) was the nom de plume of 'William Fitzgerald Jenkins', an award-winning American writer of science fiction and alternate history.
During World War I, he served with the Committee of Public Information and the United States Army (1917-1918). Leinster had already begun his career as a free-lance writer before the war; his first story, "The Foreignor", was published in 1916. In 1921, he married Mary Mandola. They had four daughters. During World War II, he served in the Office of War Information.
Leinster wrote and published over 1,500 short stories and articles over the course of his career. He wrote 14 movie and hundreds of radio scripts and television plays, inspiring several series including "Land of the Giants" and "The Time Tunnel".
Leinster first began appearing in the late 1910s in pulp magazines like ''Argosy'' and then sold to ''Astounding Stories'' in the 1930s on a regular basis. After World War II, when both his name and the pulps had achieved a wider acceptance, he would use either "William Fitzgerald" or "Will F. Jenkins" as names on stories when "Leinster" had already sold a piece to a particular issue. He was very prolific and successful in the fields of western, mystery, horror, and especially science fiction. His novel ''Miners in the Sky'' transfers the lawless atmosphere of the California Gold Rush, a common theme of Westerns, into an asteroid environment.
He is credited with the invention of parallel universe stories. Four years before Jack Williamson's ''The Legion of Time'' came out, Leinster wrote his "Sidewise in Time", which was first published in Astounding in June 1934. This was probably the first time that the concept of alternate worlds appeared in modern science-fiction. In a sidewise path of time some cities never happened to be built. Leinster's vision of nature's extraordinary oscillations in time ('sidewise in time') had long-term effect on other authors, e.g., Isaac Asimov's "Living Space", "The Red Queen's Race", or his famous ''The End of Eternity''.
Murray Leinster's 1946 short story "A Logic Named Joe" describes Joe, a "logic", that is to say, a computer. This is one of the first descriptions of a computer in fiction. In this story Leinster was decades ahead of his time in imagining the Internet. He envisioned logics in every home, linked to provide communications, entertainment, data access, and commerce: one character says that "logics are civilization."
In 2000, Leinster's heirs sued Paramount Pictures over the film '', claiming that as the owners of the rights to Leinster's short story "First Contact", it infringed their trademark in the term. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted Paramount's motion for summary judgment and dismissed the suit (see for the full text of the court's ruling). The court found that regardless of whether Leinster's story first coined "first contact", it has since become a generic (and therefore unprotectable) term that described the overall genre of science fiction in which humans first encounter alien species. Even if the title was instead "descriptive"—a category of terms higher than "generic" that may be protectable—there was no evidence that the title had the required association in the public's mind (known as "secondary meaning") such that its use would normally be understood as referring to Leinster's story. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court's dismissal without comment.
Jenkins was also an inventor, best known for the front projection process used in special effects.
★ Liberty Award (1937) for "A Very Nice Family"
★ Hugo Award (1956) for Best Novelette for "Exploration Team"
★ Retro-Hugo (1996) for Best Novelette for "First Contact"
★ Guest of Honor at the 21st Worldcon in 1963.
★ The Sidewise Award for Alternate History (established in 1996) is named after Leinster's story "Sidewise in Time."
★ Murray Leinster Website
★
★
During World War I, he served with the Committee of Public Information and the United States Army (1917-1918). Leinster had already begun his career as a free-lance writer before the war; his first story, "The Foreignor", was published in 1916. In 1921, he married Mary Mandola. They had four daughters. During World War II, he served in the Office of War Information.
Leinster wrote and published over 1,500 short stories and articles over the course of his career. He wrote 14 movie and hundreds of radio scripts and television plays, inspiring several series including "Land of the Giants" and "The Time Tunnel".
Leinster first began appearing in the late 1910s in pulp magazines like ''Argosy'' and then sold to ''Astounding Stories'' in the 1930s on a regular basis. After World War II, when both his name and the pulps had achieved a wider acceptance, he would use either "William Fitzgerald" or "Will F. Jenkins" as names on stories when "Leinster" had already sold a piece to a particular issue. He was very prolific and successful in the fields of western, mystery, horror, and especially science fiction. His novel ''Miners in the Sky'' transfers the lawless atmosphere of the California Gold Rush, a common theme of Westerns, into an asteroid environment.
He is credited with the invention of parallel universe stories. Four years before Jack Williamson's ''The Legion of Time'' came out, Leinster wrote his "Sidewise in Time", which was first published in Astounding in June 1934. This was probably the first time that the concept of alternate worlds appeared in modern science-fiction. In a sidewise path of time some cities never happened to be built. Leinster's vision of nature's extraordinary oscillations in time ('sidewise in time') had long-term effect on other authors, e.g., Isaac Asimov's "Living Space", "The Red Queen's Race", or his famous ''The End of Eternity''.
Murray Leinster's 1946 short story "A Logic Named Joe" describes Joe, a "logic", that is to say, a computer. This is one of the first descriptions of a computer in fiction. In this story Leinster was decades ahead of his time in imagining the Internet. He envisioned logics in every home, linked to provide communications, entertainment, data access, and commerce: one character says that "logics are civilization."
In 2000, Leinster's heirs sued Paramount Pictures over the film '', claiming that as the owners of the rights to Leinster's short story "First Contact", it infringed their trademark in the term. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted Paramount's motion for summary judgment and dismissed the suit (see for the full text of the court's ruling). The court found that regardless of whether Leinster's story first coined "first contact", it has since become a generic (and therefore unprotectable) term that described the overall genre of science fiction in which humans first encounter alien species. Even if the title was instead "descriptive"—a category of terms higher than "generic" that may be protectable—there was no evidence that the title had the required association in the public's mind (known as "secondary meaning") such that its use would normally be understood as referring to Leinster's story. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court's dismissal without comment.
| Contents |
| Other endeavors |
| Honors and awards |
| External links |
Other endeavors
Jenkins was also an inventor, best known for the front projection process used in special effects.
Honors and awards
★ Liberty Award (1937) for "A Very Nice Family"
★ Hugo Award (1956) for Best Novelette for "Exploration Team"
★ Retro-Hugo (1996) for Best Novelette for "First Contact"
★ Guest of Honor at the 21st Worldcon in 1963.
★ The Sidewise Award for Alternate History (established in 1996) is named after Leinster's story "Sidewise in Time."
External links
★ Murray Leinster Website
★
★
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