ABOUT ROBERT J. TILLEY

The author was born in Cottingham, Yorkshire, 12th May, 1928. His father was a sales rep for National Cash Registers, and his mother a housewife.

His family moved to Devon when he was four years old and three years later to Bridgwater in Somerset, where he grew up.

Tilley recalls: “Dad occasionally wrote poetry—not bad, some of it—and late in life Mum became a pretty good Sunday painter, so I obviously owe my creative streak to both of them.

“When I was small, my sister, who’s eighteen months older, used to read stories to me, but because she was a bit hesitant and I was impatient to know what happened next I learned to read before I started school. I’ve been a pretty voracious reader for most of my life as well as a keen cinema-goer and jazz enthusiast, my love for which is reflected in a fair bit of my writing. I bought my first instrument, a clarinet, when I was sixteen and working as an auctioneer’s clerk—a job for which I was totally unsuited—and later a tenor saxophone. I organised and played in various bands up to my mid-sixties when I had to pack it in because of health problems. Still tinkle on the piano and occasionally the vibraphone when I have the time and energy, which isn’t often.

“I took a commercial art course at Bristol College of Art And Design in the late 1940’s and after leaving worked initially as a screen printer. Subsequently worked as a graphic designer, specialising in display and exhibitions, and spent the final decade of my working life as a lecturer at a Further Education college in London, taking early retirement and returning to Bristol in 1985.

“My wife and I now live in the beautiful and blessedly peaceful Mendip hills, coping as well as we can with the infirmities and general drawbacks of old age.

“I followed what seems to be the commonplace route to an appreciation of science fiction; Flash Gordon serials at the local Saturday morning matinees when I was young, and I remember being very taken with the BBC radio serialisation of War of the Worlds, which used Holt’s Mars, the god of war as its opening and closing music. Powerful stuff. I read Wells and Verne and occasional sf stories in magazines like Argosy, but the range of my early reading was quite wide—still is—and I only discovered the SF magazines when I was in my mid-twenties.

“Once I got started, though, I couldn’t get enough of it. I bought all the current magazines and pretty quickly decided to have a go myself; Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine bought my first effort, a fantasy piece, and I broke into SF with a couple of sales to Authentic Science Fiction, just prior to its unfortunate demise.

“My subsequent early stories appeared in other British magazines such as New Worlds, Science Fantasy and Nebula. But when the home market sagged, I tried the USA, and was gratified to sell several stories to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, some of which were later anthologized.

“My output has been sporadic to say the least—twenty-some stories and two novels over a sixty year period could hardly be described as prolific. I’m both astounded and impressed by the sheer volume and, generally speaking, consistency of work produced by people as diverse as Ballard and Tubb, but there’s no way that I could have followed their industrious example.

“Writing was their vocation, but my butterfly mind has meant that I’ve only ever been able to concentrate on it in relatively short bursts. Variety is the spice of life, it’s said, but while I’ve derived a lot of pleasure from my assorted activities I have to confess that ultimately, of all my creative efforts, writing has given me the deepest satisfaction.”