Eric Frank Russell

Eric Frank Russell (January 6, 1905 - February 28, 1978) was an English science fiction author, producing some of the best humorous science fiction of his time. He also used pseudonyms Duncan H. Munro and Webster Craig for short fiction.

Russell was a man who loathed the pomposity and rigmarole of humanity's various forms of organisation; he generally took aim at authority in all its forms. His is the humour of the pantomime clown, and yet a deeper and more serious thread, in which the spiritual aspects of humanity's endeavours and aspirations shine through, runs through his work.

He was born in Sandhurst, Surrey into a military family. He served with the RAF during World War II and worked briefly as an engineer before taking up writing full-time. He was an active supporter of post-war science fiction and also a member of the Fortean Society. He won a Hugo Award in 1955 for his short story "Allamagoosa", a Prometheus Hall of Fame Award in 1985 for "The Great Explosion", and in 2000 was a posthumous inductee into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

Russell's full-length works (some of which are collections of related stories) include:

Sinister Barrier (1939)
Dreadful Sanctuary (1948)
Sentinels from Space (also published as The Star Watchers, 1951)
Three to Conquer (also published as Call Him Dead, 1955)
Men, Martians and Machines (1955)
Wasp (1957)
Next of Kin (also published as The Space Willies, 1958)
The Great Explosion (1962)
With A Strange Device (1964); alternate title The Mindwarpers (1965)
Somewhere a Voice (1965, 7 stories)

Russell also wrote many short stories and novellas.

Design for Great-Day (1995) by Alan Dean Foster and Eric Frank Russell is based on a 1955 story by Eric Frank Russell.