Cult SF writer - JOHN KIPPAX: Science Fiction's Jazz Humourist

JOHN KIPPAX: 

SCIENCE FICTION’S 

JAZZ HUMOURIST 

Because of his ‘Venturer Twelve’ novels written with Dan Morgan, 

John Kippax is frequently seen as a hard-science writer of 

relentless Space Opera. But this is unfair. 

 He could be better than such detractors suggest. 

Andrew Darlington examines the evidence… 

The opening art-panel, in atmospheric black-and-red, is luringly striking. A ringed Saturnian planet suspended top-left in the dark star-spangled sky of arid world Krodos Seven. Two spacesuited figures stand besides their damaged scoutship. The taller, adult male – Lieutenant Jim Roberts, is pointing at a distant range of rugged rocks. The smaller, younger figure – Ensign Phil Wallace, looks up at him, questioningly. This dramatic art draws you into “Call Him Friday”, a text-story featured in the 1958 edition of the ‘Daily Mail Boys Annual’. Elsewhere within the book there are western tales, jungle adventures, hobbies pages and historical features targeted to excite schoolboy readers.

There’s a Captain WE Johns ‘Biggles’ yarn, and a crime-detection case for prolific Eric Leyland’s ‘free-lance adventurer David Flame’. There’s even an opening speculative fact-feature, “Into Unknown Space” by AM Dutton, which beguiles its readers ‘I think it can be stated with some degree of certainty that within the next fifty years (that is, within your lifetime) man will be ready to make the journey into outer space’. Despite the accuracy of this prediction, John Kippax – author of “Call Him Friday”, doesn’t mess with such trivial predictions, he sets his space-adventure heroes in the far-future year 3127AD!

In a cave the stranded duo find the skeletal remains of a space ‘Robinson Crusoe’, the sole member of a three-hundred years old expedition previously marooned on Krodos Seven. But who, or what, is the Man Friday referred to in his ancient journal? Then they meet the dead spacer’s loyal robot companion, still functioning by cannibalising other robotic components from the original wreck, and operating sufficiently well to construct a radio, using antiquated acid-batteries, to send out a ‘Mayday’ signal for its two new ‘masters’. With touching pathos, as the rescue ship embarks in response to their message, Friday finally ceases, ‘no pilot light glowed’. As the pair prepare to leave, ‘there, now almost obliterated by drifting sand, they could just make out the almost human foot-prints’ left by the robot, faithful to, and beyond death.

Forgotten, and omitted from most of John Kippax’s existing bibliographies, this neat little seven-page story in a boy’s adventure annual shows all of the narrative skill and range of the more mature work he published in the Science Fiction magazines of the time. Indeed, the full wealth of fiction that Kippax produced across the span of the 1950’s and 1960’s is itself neglected and virtually overlooked. When he is discussed at all it is usually in terms of the militaristic Space Opera content of his ‘Venturer Twelve’ novels which lapped over into the 1970’s. There have even been critical accusations of unreconstructed sexist and racist attitudes. But this is unfair. He could be better than such detractors suggest.

Now think ‘Avatar’, James Cameron’s 2009 movie. A soulless rapacious corporation asset-stripping an idyllic planet, where the aliens live together in harmonious unity with each other and with their environment. But think, not 3D CGI depth of widescreen wonder. But just eleven pages of tight text in an April 1958 issue of modest Science Fiction magazine ‘Nebula’. This slight story – “End Planet”, goes some way towards refuting the easy stereotyping of John Kippax as a hard-science writer of relentless Space Opera. The aliens are thin pieces of shimmery colour named Half Crow, Long Yell, Tallpot, Footping, Troppo and Wallache. Although not native to the planet, they can merge into a single entity, and teleport around the world – and across space, helping other smaller native arachnid beings to shrink-wrap the corpses of their dead. The reason for this becomes gradually apparent. Seen from the alien’s uncomprehending point of view, the advance exploratory team from Star Trade Incorporated do not appreciate that, ‘on this planet, what they call death is infectious.’ Their killing, butchering, and meat-eating will trigger its own lethal retribution. A neat little parable with a wholesome eco-message.

A follow-up story, “Thy Rod And Thy Staff” in the December issue of the same magazine, has a similar pacifist spine to its theme. This time it unobtrusively features a priest as its central protagonist, Bill Kibbee, visiting planet Moen III, a superhot world haunted by elusive red-eyed aboriginal Moes. In a taut and tightly-constructed group-jeopardy plot, Kibbee and pilot Sims are stranded when a helicopter they’re using is brought down by a flight of birds, and it’s the hated and hunted psi-enabled Moes who help them survive the hostile conditions. But only when the two humans have exhausted their arsenal of weapons, and are unarmed.

As these brief plotlines suggest, each story is distinctive, and distinctly different. Which is another aspect to any attempted appraisal of John Kippax fiction…

UNFINISHED SYMPHONIES 

Born 10 June 1915 in Alwalton, Huntingdonshire, ‘John Kippax’ was actually the pen name used by John Charles Hynam. His literary collaborator and close personal friend writer-guitarist Dan Morgan recalls that ‘John had a larger-than-life physical and psychic presence. Likeable, eccentric, egocentric, kind, brusque, take your pick from the thesaurus to describe him, he was all of these and more’ (in the postscript to the novel ‘Where No Stars Guide’, published posthumously in 1975). Round-of-face, dark-haired and bespectacled, Kippax qualified as an English master at a grammar school where he was soon writing ‘at least one thousand words a day despite the inroads on his mental health by small boys.’ He claimed ‘voracious reading habits’ and wrote non-genre fiction for children’s literary magazine ‘Young Elizabethan’, and for Putnam’s ‘Pick Of Today’s Short Stories’ (1954) edited by John Pudney, but – as he confided to a ‘New Worlds’ Writer Profile ‘I began to write science fiction almost as soon as I started to read it,’ calling it jokily ‘a disability from which I never expect to completely recover’ (no.58, April 1957).

The debut Kippax tale – “Dimple”, in ‘Science Fantasy’ (No.11, December 1954), is an impressively assured piece narrated in a jaunty first-person style. Framed as a message from pfc Herman J Herman on the Mars colony it describes Master-Sergeant Miller as a man who’s ‘face would not only stop a clock, it would make it shout for mercy too… my buddy Satchmo, who drives a truck for the service corps says why don’t we find a nice big bug-eyed monster and throw him to it? Because, I say, the BEM would throw him right back.’ This satire of the ‘brutal and licentious soldiery’ anticipates Harry Harrison’s ‘Bill, The Galactic Hero’ (1965), and while positively introducing racial diversity into the Ordnance Corps, Satchmo is dubiously described as ‘a southern states American whom you would miss completely on a dark night.’

Satchmo is also a clue to another passion. Introducing a story called “Solid Beat” (for ‘Science Fantasy’ no.25, October 1957) editor John Carnell observes that ‘for a long time jazz has been in close affinity to fantasy fiction – it is surprising the number of writers and readers we have who are keenly interested in both – and perhaps a psychologist could give good reasons why this is so. It is not surprising, therefore, that John Kippax who is himself a jazz-man has chosen a theme incorporating both mediums.’

Kippax was a musician who played in a dance band alongside Dan Morgan, and he wrote authoritatively about music for ‘Melody Maker’. His humorous tale of a mysterious bass-player recruited by saxophonist George Vallis’ Quintet attempts a knowing insider’s peek into the Beat Generation sub-world. Portraying guitarist Dan who ‘stuck to beer and guitars and science fiction,’ and a madcap drummer with a drink and gambling problem, while taking amusing shots at bop prosidy such as ‘Sid Farrar was a boy headed straight for the main furnace. What a drummer. What a louse!’ and expletives such as ‘not corpuscular likely!’ (a Beat-elaboration of ‘not bloody likely’).

The problem with writing a detailed analysis of John Kippax’s work is its diversity. It’s difficult to pin down a unique trait, or stylistic continuity – except, maybe for this jazz-thread, and for what Ken Bulmer calls his ‘elusive spirit of comedy.’ He was many things in many stories, but questing for that key to Kippax fiction, maybe it lies here – as British SF’s Jazz Humourist?

His stories reflect the tone and attitudes, and in some ways preserve snapshots of their time. George Mossendew is a socially-dysfunctional obsessive model-making hobbyist. What we’d now term a nerd, who gets the opportunity to do backgrounds for what Kippax calls ‘a series of puppet advertising films’. But commercial television was in its infancy. The very first TV-ad (22 September 1955) – for Gibbs SR toothpaste was broadcast the same year, but prior to the story’s publication. So if the model-making wasn’t for TV, what exactly did Kippax have in mind? Gerry Anderson’s ingenious animations still lay years into the future (including his own work for ‘Fireball XL5’). So maybe it was a Pearl & Dean cinema-ad? Whatever, Mossendew’s success leads to a commission for a film being produced at Elmwood Studios – ‘Conquest Of The Moon’, where Kippax slyly name-checks George Pal (of ‘Conquest Of Space’, 1955), and Chesley Bonestell whose photo-realistic art was used for Pal’s film. For Elmwood, read Elstree Studios.

Readers of ‘Science Fantasy’ would knowingly pick up these in-joke references, just as they would know what ‘Gilbert Harding spectacles’ look like. The fantasy element enters when, pushed to meet an impossible deadline, he buys large-format astronomical photos from a secretive contact who approaches him in the pub, one of which turns out to have been ‘taken with a flash bomb from the side of the moon we never see – the dark side.’ Of course, prior to orbital probes, nothing was then known about the moon’s hidden face. The only clue is supplied by the story title – “Mossendew’s Martian”.

He plays literary pranks too. In “By The Forelock” (‘Authentic Science Fiction’ no.77, February 1957) he enters the fiercely contested academic debate about the true provenance of William Shakespeare’s plays. Determined to discover the truth, Uncle Pyropeles uses Time Tours to travel back to February 1602 where his memorised quotes help the Bard complete a troubling passage in ‘Twelfth Night’. Until his interference provokes a duel in which Francis Bacon runs Shakespeare through with a sword, killing him. So, contrary to Time Tours policy, Pyropeles determines to stay in the past ‘helping Francis Bacon to write the later plays of William Shakespeare’.

It’s true that the Bard has figured in other excursions into fantasy. Only a few years previous, Isaac Asimov’s “The Immortal Bard” (‘Universe’, May 1954) had used time-travel to bring Shakespeare forward to the present day, only to have him humiliated by failing a university course in his own work. But the paradox of replacing a historical figure in order to ensure cultural continuity looks forward more to Michael Moorcock’s ‘Behold The Man’ (1969), in which his time-traveller, Karl Glogauer steps into the role of a flawed Jesus, to live out the biblical account of his life. The Kippax story might be a brief playful piece, but the circular conundrum remains, if Pyropeles is writing the plays from memory, who was actually the author?

There’s more indeterminacy in “Salute Your Superiors!” (‘Authentic SF’ no 79, April 1957). Former-astronaut Wrokel is confined to a mental hospital where he writes his highly-fictionalised memoirs of adventures across the solar system, which affectionately recall the contents of some of the more trashy SF magazines, while in reality ‘we’ve never yet come across a scrap of humanoid life outside Terra.’ So what happens when he encounters a genuine visitor from Arcturus IV?

There’s evidence of a change in his writing towards the mid-sixties. Partly due to shifts in the market itself, as the mainstay magazines fell away. But also as a result of altered literary emphasis. Anthologising one of his stories for the ‘Weird Shadows From Beyond’ (1965) collection, John Carnell notes that Kippax ‘has had a wide variety of short stories published over the years, mostly in the Science Fiction and Fantasy categories, although his output is now relatively small – under another name he now writes radio and television plays and serials.’ Which is true. But around the same time, Kippax also commenced a parallel career writing supernatural fiction under his own name, John Hynam (but also wrote as Joan, or Jane Hyman, or Julian Frey). Indeed Carnell had already argued that ‘we have always maintained that John Kippax is a natural fantasy writer rather than a science fiction one, although he strongly disagrees with its contention’ (introduction to “The Underling” in ‘New Worlds’ no.62, August 1957).

Kippax quotes the aspirational examples of Arthur C Clarke and John Christopher as not only great SF writers, but better quality writers than their American counterparts. While, with regard to his own creative process, he explains ‘I believe in the ‘think piece’ method of working out a story, which is to put a bare notion at the top of the page and pound the typewriter for as many thousand words as it takes for the story idea to emerge.’ Admitting modestly that ‘this system does not often fail.’ Yet despite this improvisational free-flowing methodology, Kippax was never destined to join the pantheon of greats he quotes as models. Maybe clues to why this is so lie in the story which best draws on his jazz authenticity, cover-illustrated by Brian Lewis for ‘Science Fantasy’ (no.34, April 1959). “The Lady Was Jazz” – almost a Beat Generation Bop paean to the magic of jazz, and one of his finest tales, features jazz trumpeter Lou Joris who ducks the temptation of greatness for a more comfortable mainstream competency, he ‘was not of the stuff from which truly top flight jazzmen are made; he just didn’t have that kind of greatness. He was a good musician, with a good band, and he had a good woman who loved him. That would have to be enough.’

John Kippax was a good writer, who contributed many fine stories to some great magazines. But maybe he lacked the stuff from which truly top flight fantasists are made? If so, according to his own logic, that was enough.

Which may also explain the genesis of the good-natured ‘Venturer Twelve’ novel series, co-authored with Dan Morgan. His link with Morgan goes all the way back to John’s fiction co-debut – “Trojan Hearse”, co-written with Dan as early as 1954, and published in ‘New Worlds’ no.30. Morgan had a two-year start, having begun in ‘New Worlds’ no.13 in January 1952, with a story called “Alien Analysis”. The long-term association culminated in the two writers collaborating on the first three volumes of this widescreen Space Opera series. Kippax wrote the fourth book himself, trading in the distinctive oddness of his short fiction for these mainstream hard-bitten – but essentially soft-centred, action-adventures.

The first volume – ‘A Thunder Of Stars’ (1968), introduces Commander Tom Bruce whose commitment to the ideals of the Space Corps mission are placed above and beyond his own and anyone else’s humanity. Even to the extent of axing his relationship with courageous, dedicated and sensitive former lover Helen Lindstrom. Only for the tough macho spacer to demand her as Second in Command of their crew when he’s given command of the Corps’ newest ship ‘Venturer Twelve’ itself – variously described as ‘a giant egg on stilts’ or an ‘enormous oblately spheroidal bulk on three angled tripod legs.’

Space Corps is a constant through his earlier short fiction, but then again, it’s a fairly routine variant used as a catch-all for Star Fleet or Space Patrol. There’s doggerel verse at the opening of each chapter, some questionable sex scenes, and militaristic techno-porn consistent with Robert A Heinlein’s ‘Starship Troopers’ universe. Arguably there are sexist and racist elements too. He positively introduces multiracial crews with strong female members, yet the downside is that this allows what we’d now consider dubious humour, and if they’re products of their times, they seem to be unquestioningly accepted. But there are tongue-in-cheek elements too. As noted by Morgan, the character of Admiral Junius Farragut Carter, Captain Bruce’s boss, is ‘Hynam’s own wryly conceived self-caricature.’

Bruce takes tough decisions even Captain Kirk might baulk at. In ‘Seed Of Stars’ (1972) he exterminates an entire colony that’s fallen victim to alien experimentation. But instead of tracking the malevolent aliens down, he gets sidetracked on a diplomatic mission to Kepler, a colony world governed by its founding Japanese corporation. A parallel narrative follows Mia and Piet’s shipboard romance. In the Corps it’s permissible to have sex with a crewmate, so long as it doesn’t contravene command hierarchy, which crewperson Mia and medical doctor Piet’s relationship does. Piet even disables Mia’s contraceptive implant in order for her to have his child. They plan to abandon ship at Kepler, which is petitioning for independence enabling it to conduct its own affairs. Again Commander Tom must make seemingly heartless decisions.

In ‘The Neutral Stars’ (1973) ‘Twelve’ and her sister ships are tasked with protecting space-faring humanity as best they can from escalating incursions by the mysterious aliens. Their origin and nature never clarified, beyond having ‘come from somewhere within the holes in space.’ In response, United Earth Government needs to commandeer an entire world – sufficient to contain the forces unleashed by warp-drive research, but is incapable of raising the finance, while knowing the aliens already possess such sub-space technology, and unaware that their worst enemy is right here on Earth. The fourth novel – ‘Where No Stars Guide’ (1975), by John Kippax alone, sees Earth faced by the arrival of an enormous shimmering gold space-sphere, with its strange problematic cargo. Surgeon Lieutenant Creighton needs the ‘Twelve’ to capture a living alien, just as Tom Bruce is assigned to protect Elsa Niebohr, who has chosen a Balomain planet for Excelsior Corp’s research into the elusive warp-drive, as the home-world’s need for it becomes even more vital.

These readable, if undemanding novels, sold respectably well, gathering a loyal readership. And with the interstellar struggle gathering momentum, it clearly indicates exploits ahead for Commander Bruce and his Space Corps team, were it not for John Hynam’s tragically premature death. Dan Morgan signaled his intention of writing a fifth volume, but he died 24 November 2011 without having done so, leaving ‘Venturer Twelve’ poised on a permanent cliff-hanger, doomed never to be resolved.

John Hynam was killed on the sunny afternoon of 17 July 1974 – aged just fifty-nine, when a lorry hit his newly-acquired Mini at Werrington, a few miles outside Peterborough. He left a wife, Phyl, and a daughter, Jennifer – who a week before had given birth to his first grandchild, a son, an event he was eagerly anticipating.

As Dan Morgan’s postscript to ‘Where No Stars Guide’ recounts, John Kippax was ‘a man of enormous enthusiasms, he died as he lived, at full speed.’

JOHN KIPPAX: BIBLIOFILE 

SHORT STORIES 

1954 – “Dimple” (‘Science Fantasy no.11’, December 1954) Marsport is ‘a great expanse of sweet Fanny Adams, flat and hard’, where a rodent-problem is solved by Aunt Gertrude’s smuggled dachshund. Herman doesn’t admit the rats were inadvertently imported in a compartment in Dimple’s box! Knockabout humor

1954 – “Trojan Hearse” (‘New Worlds no.30, December 1954) written with Dan Morgan. Illustrated by Brian Lewis. ‘It has always been a recognised prerogative in wartime that opponents allow the Red Cross to succour the injured although there have been many incidents where this humane cause has been ignored. How would an alien race react to such a measure during a space battle? Especially if there had been no common basis of negotiation beforehand’ Earth is besieged behind force-field defense-screens by an alien fleet, neither side able to break the impasse. Robert Wallace, Commissioner of Terran Security Police, uses the Red Cross truce as a cover to attack and destroy the enemy ships, unaware that they’ve also used the truce to infiltrate the bodies of the dead humans he has retrieved from space…

1955 – “Mossendew’s Martian” (‘Science Fantasy no.13’, April 1955) illustrated by Quinn. ‘One of the biggest difficulties being experienced in the making of science fiction films is necessity for ‘accurate’ extra-terrestrial scenery. Until the first on-the-spot photographs from the Moon or Mars reach us, the artists’ imagination must serve instead’

1955 – “Down To Earth” (‘Authentic Science Fiction no.57’, May 1955) ‘In Africa, as here, you never can tell what children may get up to!’ A missing Postal-rocket over Nairobi, and a dematerialising car leads George Chaffee to Billy Pado, a young African boy with psi-telekinetic abilities. Finally, flying him to London for ‘corrective’ brain-surgery Chaffee seems to be about to use him to ‘wish away’ tyrannical boss PP Matthews! The issue also includes ‘Kwakiutl’ – a consumerist satire on conspicuous consumption by Dan Morgan and ‘Pogsmith’ – about a shapeshifting alien on a Galactic Zoo on Mercury by Brian W Aldiss

1955 – “Special Delivery” (‘Science Fantasy no.14’, June 1955) illustrated by Woodward. A second ‘Dimple’ story, fizzing with snappy humorous prose, ‘today three freight ships have come in, a thing never before known, not even on our colonel’s birthday’, and ‘a nightmare ship with little men in plastic suits operating it’ seen from a Venus orbit station – ‘Bug Men Seen!!! Space Station Men Go Crazy!!!’

1955 – “Hounded Down” (‘Science Fantasy no.16’, November 1955) illustrated by Alan Hunter. A third ‘Dimple’ tale, ‘life in the Ordnance Dept of Mars Base will never be dull as long as Herman’s dachshund Dimple continues to poke her nose into other people’s business – this time it is a case (or some cases) of stolen supplies’. Essentially, National Service humorous scrapes which just happen to be set on Mars

1955 – “Mother Of Invention” (‘Authentic Science Fiction no.64’ December 1955), story in the form of a resignation letter, George Donnison tells how he met Skirmer in a Bar, one of two retired-scientists who used ‘Project Brooklyn’ as a cover to invent the Tomasso-teleport, and how to synthesise the uranium atom. Not a strong story, its strengths lie largely in wacky dialogue interplay

1956 – “Again” (‘Authentic Science Fiction no.65’, January 1956). Poor, clumsy, what Michael Moorcock calls a ‘shaggy god’ story. Robot Faraki from an Earth decimated by the Gripping Sickness regenerate a human on a new world. His female companion says ‘my name is Eve’

1956 – “Fair Weather Friend” (‘Science Fantasy no.18’ May 1956) thefts from struggling ‘Blane-Moskowitz Rainmaking Inc’ are due to Men-O-Tah, time-travelling ancient Egyptian who is subsequently inadvertently responsible for Noah’s Flood. American setting with Ginny ‘as nicely stacked a little bundle as you’re ever likely to see in this neck of the cactus’

1956 – “Waif Astray” (‘Authentic Science Fiction no.67’, March 1956) Told in folksy American, little Billy is a misfit in Little Corinth, until Mr Dirim, who shrinks folk and puts them in his bag. Sam is skeptical at first, but watches it through a telescope from the Vogelsang cave-mouth. Seems Billy is a zif-bomb planted by the alien Dirimi, who will detonate when the cops take him to New York, where Terra’s leaders are meeting

1956 – “We Are One” (‘Authentic Science Fiction no.73’, September 1956) ‘It is important to any culture that visitors to that culture conform – one way or another’ On triple-sunned Khios Seven they welcome death as part of a cycle of renewal, as part of the ONE, when Creed murders Simister, it seems the humans are also part of ONE

1956 – “We’re Only Human” (‘New Worlds no.53’, November 1956) John Carnell commends its ‘double approach’ to ‘both robotics and child psychology’, yet it’s a simple – almost juvenile tale, of a schoolboy who wants a personal robot like all the others boys, so his Gramp adapts an old model, it turns out to be an outlawed ‘freewill’ thousand-year-old model which protects and helps him

1956 – “Cut And Come Again” (‘Science Fantasy no.20’, December 1956) Piotr Lugan is commissioned by grotesque clients to construct a guillotine unaware that, in a partial dream-sequence, he is also to be the executioner. On waking he’s been paid in full, in eighteen-century guineas

1957 – “By The Forelock” (‘Authentic Science Fiction no.77’, February 1957) ‘Did Bacon write Shakespeare? Did Shakespeare write Bacon? Or is there another solution?’

1957 –“Finegan Begin Again” (‘Science Fantasy no.21’, February 1957) ‘Take a tired and jaded leprechaun with failing powers who passes on to a mortal some of his own magic, add an eligible bachelor and some designing women and you have a high-powered story.’ A silly comic fantasy

1957 – “Salute Your Superiors!” (‘Authentic Science Fiction no.79’, April 1957) ‘It was such a pity that the visitor was weak on procedure. It was even more of a pity that he met the one man who couldn’t tolerate insubordination’

1957 – “Point Of Contact” (‘New Worlds no.58’, April 1957), on planet Lemnos III, crewman ‘Bingo’ Bingley’s simple juggling skills connect with the previously uncommunicative natives, plus a ‘New Worlds Profile: John Kippax’ page

1957 – “After Eddie” (‘Science Fantasy no.23’, June 1957) on his way to a ‘World Laboratories’ job-interview scientist Henry Soames calls off at ‘Neyto’ in Leather Street for a haircut with a talkative barber. The name is abbreviated from ‘(Swee)NEY TO(dd)’, the barber a purple-haired alien

1957 – “The Underlings” (‘New Worlds no.62’, August 1957) ‘The following story certainly conforms to our science fiction requirements – yet it could just as easily be published in ‘Science Fantasy’. You will see why as the story unfolds’ The coming of the quiet beautiful Terrans seen through the poetic perspective of Kolem musician Efran Klira, who’s love for Jacqueline leads him to overhear her message ‘multiple aptitudes robot two-three-one signing off’

1957 – “Solid Beat” (‘Science Fantasy no.25’ October 1957) jazz drummer Sid Farrar reads ‘Melody News’ – a fictional amalgam of ‘Melody Maker’ (to which Kippax was a contributor) and ‘Jazz News’, and claims to get messages from the future. So what will the top drummer’s kit consist of in 2055 – ‘a couple of shinbones and a hollow log’. A mention of Theodore Sturgeon’s novelette ‘The Education of Drusilla Strange’ (‘Galaxy’ March 1954), about a young criminal sentenced to life on Earth, perhaps provides a clue

1957 – “Send Him Victorious” (‘Science Fantasy no.26’, December 1957) the university Quadro-Cyclotron accidentally projects Herbert Cole into a parallel Earth of 1996 not 1986 with a different National Anthem played at the cinema, in which his married girlfriend Edith is single – but he is married! A comic-fantasy, he accidentally escapes into yet another Earth, where there’s not even a Jerningham University…

1958 – “Me, Myself And I” (‘Science Fantasy no.27’, February 1958) ‘Just how active can one’s subconscious mind be stimulated? With five-sixths of the brain still very much a mystery there is plenty of scope for a fantasy writer to produce off-trail ideas centred around this theme. For instance, have you ever tried to be the person you would like to be?’ Meek unassuming Gordon Beale finds a book ‘Be Yourself”, and spins-off a more assertive alter-ego he calls ‘Harry’ who goes to work in his stead, does better, seduces the lovely June Daly, then defrauds the company. Harry then spins-off his own alter-ego…

1958 – “End Planet” (‘Nebula no.29’, April 1958) illustrated by Arthur Thomson. ‘The problem of this little planet had been solved by the infinite patience of alien minds – and then the Earthmen landed with their lust for blood.’

1958 – “Destiny Incorporated” (‘Science Fantasy no.30’, August 1958) Brian Lewis cover-art, ‘Is Man the master of his own Fate, or destined to follow an ordained path?’ Impressive novelette with Japanese-American Matsumura ‘Matty’ Tomokatsu in a baffle of illusions following accidentally running-down eight-year-old Rowena Temple at Bruton Springs, big corporate manipulation versus alien Predestinators who guide human destiny, anti-Japanese prejudice and love interest in nurse Yoko ‘Shirley’ Mishina

1958 – “The Dusty Death” (‘New Worlds no.77’, November 1958), John Carnell says ‘a fairly simple story of just how much a death trap the Moon will be when once Man manages to place a foot on it’ – as two antagonistic crewmen reconcile as they work together to escape a crevice in Aristarchus crater. Republished in the ‘Out Of This World no.2’ anthology edited by Annabel Williams-Ellis & Mably Owen, Blackie, 1961 and ‘Out Of This World Choice’ September 1972

1958 – “It” (‘Nebula no.36, November 1958) illustrated by Kenneth Barr. ‘He was but a pawn in the hands of a bitter enemy – and then fate too decided to intervene’. In an act of revenge for adultery, Dirck Huygens – ‘wolf of the spaceways’, is deposited on planet Lidar II with Rider, a ‘poisonous little drip’ of a man. Together they confront an invisible energy-being which dies after part-consuming Rider, ‘so, it couldn’t eat men. It had tried with his companion, and it had sicked him up and killed itself’. But with both Rider and alien gone, Huygens will be the only suspect for the man’s disappearance…

1958 – “Thy Rod And Thy Staff” (‘Nebula no.37’, December 1958) illustrated by John J Greengrass. ‘They were stranded on a strange and hostile world – and then its natives came to read their minds’

1958 – “Tower For One” (‘New Worlds no.73’, July 1958) having achieved financial independence as a water-engineer on Mars, Margesson devotes his life to art, but in a ‘symbolically dramatic fashion’ when his paintings are critically savaged he leaves Earth for idyllic colony-world Krios V. All the children there are art-geniuses far beyond his ability, the properties of the sun induce colour-blindness, and he is valued as a water-engineer, not an artist. A strangely ambiguous moral about hubris and maybe not ‘rising above your station in life’?

1958 – “Call Him Friday” (‘Daily Mail Boys Annual no.3’), adapted as adult variant for ‘New Worlds’. This juvenile annual-format edited by John Bellamy, with uncredited black+red art, also includes Capt WE Johns (“The Case Of The Two Bright Boys”) and Eric Leyland (“Flame Of The Trail”)

1959 – “Friday” (‘New Worlds no.80’, February 1959) adult variant of ‘Call Him Friday’ from the 1958 ‘Daily Mail Boys Annual’, republished in the ‘Out Of This World no.1’ anthology edited by Amabel Williams-Ellis & Mably Owen, Blackie, 1960 ‘for grammar school readers’ according to Carnell

1959 – “Call Of The Wild” (‘Science Fantasy no.33’, February 1959) Roberts can over-hear insects plotting to take over the world, is it paranoia or over-developed imagination? When his secretary, Miss Torrence ‘runs lightly up the wall’ he understood… a silly humorous fantasy

1959 – “The Lady Was Jazz” (‘Science Fantasy no.34’, April 1959) Brian Lewis cover-art. The Lou Joris Seven play at the ‘Belle Marie’ in Teak Street – maybe ‘Ronnie Scott’s’ in Frith Street?, Lou is torn between the ambitious urgings of Lee Cayou the muse who knew Louis Armstrong and Bix and ‘was from all the races which had contributed to jazz – the pure African, the French, the Spanish, the Indian’, and piano-player Mae Becique. Lou rejects the lure of genius, ‘he had had his taste of immortality, and he didn’t like it’, and reconciles to his own musical ideas, with Mae…

1960 – “Last Barrier” (‘Science Fiction Adventures no.16’, September 1960) discussed in ‘New Worlds: Before The New Wave, 1960-1964: The Carnell Era Volume 2’ by John Boston (Wildside Press, 2013). It is ‘about Kanov, a member of the Steel Legion engaged in colonial warfare, who is manning an outpost in the company of his dead brother. A mysterious figure who claims to be a general, and has the proper ID shows up, and they engage in portentous conversation. The general is a veteran of campaigns including Gallipoli, Austerlitz and Bunker Hill, none of which Kanov has heard of. The whole rationale for Kanov’s existence and the Legion comes unraveled and Kanov dies begging for ‘resolution tablets’ (for the General was a plant, of course). This is actually a more effective antiwar screed than it sounds in synopsis’

1960 – “Unfinished Symphony” (‘New Worlds no.100’, November 1960) prestige celebration issue – as by John Hynam, art by Thomson, composer Jasper Crane is shocked through time so ‘Sunday Observer’ music critic Julian Frey can play him tapes of his own music he hasn’t written yet, up to the final work unfinished due to his car-crash death

1961 – “Blood Offering” (‘Science Fantasy no.47’, June 1961) republished in the ‘Weird Shadows From Beyond: An Anthology Of Strange Stories’ anthology edited by John Carnell, Corgi 1965, republished by Avon August 1969. Carnell writes ‘the selected story here shows that superstition may be something the white man can laugh off, but to the native it is a vastly different thing’

1961 – “Nelson Expects” (‘New Worlds no.110’, September 1961) John Carnell calls this ‘a story that could well have been published in that magazine (‘Playboy’)’ with conformist Mr Nelson James space-wrecked on an idyllic tropical island with fourteen-year-old Edwin, and four nubile sexually-predatory stewardesses

1961 – “Reflection Of The Truth” (‘Science Fantasy no.49’, October 1961), demonstrating Kippax stylistic diversity, this vaguely Poe-like story within a story has Balkan castle tour-guide Lazlo Janaçek relate the Gothic tale of Ladislas III, king of Bohemia and his wife Violetta’s accursed dalliance with sorcerer Skimalis, which seems to echo with Lazlo’s own young wife Jovanka. Story republished in the ‘Tales Of Unease’ anthology edited by John Burke, Pan Books 1966, republished by Doubleday 1969 and Curtis Books 1970

1961 – “Stark Refuge” (‘Science Fiction Adventures no.23’, November 1961), ‘among the many colonial worlds some were closed against visiting Earthmen, whether in distress or not. There were, of course, very special reasons’

1962 – ‘FIREBALL XL5 ANNUAL (1963)’ although individual features are uncredited, he contributes under his own name, as John Hynam. He also contributes to the ‘Cherry Ames Girls Annuals’ – ‘Behind The Cameras’ in the 1960 Annual, ‘Chupo’ (as Jane Hynam) in the 1961 Annual, ‘Spilt Ink’ (as Joan Hynam) and ‘A Café In Normandy’ (as J Hynam) in the 1962 Annual

24 October 1962 – “Closed Planet” although he wrote a number of mainstream plays, as John Hynam – including ‘Someone To Talk To’ with Wilfred Pickles (as George Bell), Jean Anderson, Joan Newell and Barry Letts (20:30, BBC-TV, 2 August 1960), ‘Closed Planet’ is the only one with an SF basis. Another with a Stone Age setting, ‘A Different Kind Of Woman’ was published in ‘The Fifth Windmill Book Of One-Act Plays’ (1970)

1966 – “Look On His Face” (‘New Worlds no.165’, August 1966) under editor Michael Moorcock, following a tip-off from a dead bar-girl on Lemnos Three, roaming Christian Priest Bill Kibbee journeys to restricted company-work Kristos V where a new messiah ‘Passion’ is being enacted, until Jahveh-lis tomb is struck by storm-lightning

1969 – “Four And One More” – as by John Hynam (‘The Fifth Ghost Book’ edited by Rosemary Timperley, Barrie & Rockliff, 1969 with paperback edition by Pan Books 1971

1970 – “Restless Lady” – as by John Hynam (‘The Sixth Ghost Book’ edited by Rosemary Timperley, Barrie & Rockliff, 1970 with paperback edition by Pan Books 1972, republished in ‘The Sixth Ghost Book, Book 2: The Judas Joke And Other Stories’ 1972

1971 – “The White Eyes Of The Little Grey God” – as by John Hynam (‘The Seventh Ghost Book’ edited by Rosemary Timperley, Barrie & Rockliff, 1971 with paperback edition by Pan Books 1973

1972 – “A Legion Marching By” – as by John Hynam (‘The Eighth Ghost Book’ edited by Rosemary Timperley, Barrie & Rockliff, 1972 with paperback edition by Pan Books 1974, republished in ‘Ghost Stories’ edited by Robert Westall, Kingfisher March 1988 in various editions

1973 – “The Time Wager” (‘New Writings In SF 22’, April 1973) first volume edited by Kenneth Bulmer, hardback Sidgwick & Jackson, paperback Corgi 1974. Subtitled ‘or; an extraordinary extrapolation of juvenile zeal resulting in a magnificent leap forwards (or backwards) into future (or past) trouble of a now-too-well-understood and rightly detested order of human endeavour.’ American exchange teacher JFB (Julian Ferrier Birtwistle) at Revell’s 1950’s-style public school, which uses corporal punishment, supervises a pupil’s time-transport into prehistory where a ball-bearing fired from a mischievous catapult causes Pithecanthropus to become Erectus. A frivolous ‘cheeky speculation’, according to Bulmer

1973 – “One For My Baby” – as by John Hynam (‘The Ninth Ghost Book’ edited by Rosemary Timperley, Barrie & Rockliff, 1969 with paperback edition by Pan Books 1975

1974 – “No Certain Armour” (‘New Writings In SF 24’ edited by Kenneth Bulmer, April 1974) hardback Sidgwick & Jackson, paperback Corgi July 1975) ‘a story of Venturer Nine, a shorter companion piece to the successful series of Venturer Twelve novels’, a mild conventional tale of a racially and gender-mixed crew, bantering cadets and efficiently-drawn characters on Kindros V, an exactly Earth-like planet on which they discover evidence they’re not the first human visitors. What killed the two buried pirates? Giant bees. No innovation, no shocks. Less ‘New Writings’, as though more pitched at a juvenile audience

1974 – ‘John Kippax Dies’ (‘Locus no.167’, 20 November 1974) obituary by Dan Morgan

NOVELS 

1968 – ‘A Thunder of Stars’ – with Dan Morgan (Macdonald, 1968 then Ballantine Books May 1970, and Pan August 1974) reviewed by Harry Harrison in ‘Vector no.52’,Winter

1972 – ‘Seed of Stars’ – with Dan Morgan (Ballantine Books February 1972, Pan Books August 1974)

1973 – ‘The Neutral Stars’ – with Dan Morgan (Ballantine Books February 1973, Pan Books February 1975) cover-blurb ‘The Stars, all space could be their hunting ground – as it already was for some unknown alien…’

1975 – ‘Where No Stars Guide’ (Pan Books, 1975) fourth and final book in the ‘Venturer Twelve’ series of Space Opera novels, by John Kippax alone. There is no American edition