Alexander Lewis
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alexander Lewis is a writer, primarily of science fiction novels and short stories. His first published work was a little-read short story entitled "Through the Eye". It appeared in the Wild Worlds sci-fi compendium magazine in 1958, when the magazine's circulation was relatively small. Two more of Lewis' short stories were published in Wild Worlds, "Back Door Haunt" and "The Universal". His major breakthrough came with the release of his first novel "Why the Wind Blows West" in 1965. This chilling tale of a modern world on the brink of self-destruction was published first in Lewis' native America, and then released on a more global scale some years later. One of Lewis' better known works is "The Thing in the Next Room", a tale of a very strange young man known only as "Smith", whose behaviour becomes increasingly erratic and shocking throughout the novel. Lewis' initial description of the man is particularly disturbing:
"He stood about five and a half feet tall. He was slim almost to the point of starvation and had skin of a sickly yellow tone. His hair was long, past his shoulders and tangled up in ropes. His manner of dress was especially peculiar, it was not unknown for him to wear very tight garments designed to be worn by women. Indeed, he also had a tendency to keep company with women, and his mannerisms and affectations were for the most part feminine..."
-- Excerpt from "The Thing in the Next Room", Alexander Lewis, published in 1974 by Croughton Books.
To date, Lewis has published seventeen novels and over twenty short stories. Although not widely recognised by the public at large, Lewis is highly praised among science fiction aficionados, and is often likened to Philip K Dick, one of the masters of the genre. Lewis has won several of the smaller science fiction awards, including the Scandinavian Non-native Science Fiction Short Story of the year award in 1974 for his short story "The Glass Tree".
