Charles Eric Maine
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Charles Eric Maine, aka David McIlwain, was an English science fiction writer whose most prominent works were published in the 1950's and 1960's. His stories were thrillers that dealt with new scientific technology. One of his most notable works, Timeliner, was about a scientist who was experimenting with a time machine, only to be maliciously thrust in the future by a fellow scientist who was having an affair with his wife.
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[edit] Biography
Charles Eric Maine was the pseudonym for David McIlwain. He was born in Liverpool, England, on January 21, 1921 and died in London on November 30, 1981. He published three issues of a science fiction magazine called The Satellite where he was a co-editor along with J. F. Burke. From 1940 to 1941, he published his own magazine called Gargoyle.
During World War II, he was in the Royal Air Force and served in Northern Africa in 1943.
After the war, he worked in TV engineering, and became involved in editorial work with radio and TV.
In 1952, he sold his first radio play, Spaceways, to the BBC. Due to its popularity, it became a novel as well as a movie. Similarly, his better known novel, Timeliner, was originally written as a radio play called The Einstein Highway.
[edit] Bibliography
Spaceways (1953) (Variant Title: Spaceways Satellite)
Timeliner (1955)
Escapement (1956) (Variant Title: The Man Who Couldn't Sleep)
High Vacuum (1956)
The Tide Went Out (1958) (Revised in 1997 with Variant Title: Thirst!)
World Without Men (1958) (Revised in 1972 with Variant Title: Alph)
Count-Down (1959) (Variant Title: Fire Past the Future)
Crisis 2000 (1959)
Calculated Risk (1960)
He Owned the World (1960) (Variant Title: The Man Who Owned the World)
The Mind of Mr. Soames (1961)
The Darkest of Nights (1962) (Variant Title: Survival Margin)
B.E.A.S.T. (1966)
[edit] Synopses of Novels
[edit] Movies
The Electronic Monster, 1958
Timeslip, 1956, in the United Kingdom; released as The Atomic Man, United States, 1956; released as Det galler sekunder, Sweden, 1957; released as 7 sekuntia, Finland, 1957; released as Sette secondi piu tardi, Italy; released in West Germany in 1981; This movie, written by Charles Eric Maine, was the basis for the later novel, The Isotope Man.
The Mind of Mr. Soames, 1970. This movie received an incredibly bad review in the New York Times, October, 1970, which includes the following memorable sentence: (the movie) "...displays an emptiness and a falseness of response that is beneath even the inadequacy of its ideas and the banality of its plot."
