Henry Kenneth Bulmer

Biographical Background:

• Nationality: British.
  
• Born in London, Janruary 14, 1921- 16.12.2005
  
• History: Educated at Catford Central School, London.
  
• Served in the Royal Corps of Signals, 1941-46.
  
• Married Pamela Kathleen Buckmaster in 1953; two daughters and one son.
  
• Worked for paper merchandising and office equipment firms, 1936-54.
  
• Editor and Co-Editor, Star Parade, 1941, Fantasy Post, 1941, Seventy Eight Saga (army magazine), 1943-45, Nirvana, 1949, 1954, Science Fantasy News, 1953, Aaaah!, 1954, Dysteology, 1954-55, Vignette, 1954, Ziz, 1954, and Wappoted, 1956.

• Henry (Ken) Bulmer passed away at 12.15am today 16th December 2005. He went very peacefully following a long illness and we shall all miss him very much.
  

Agent:	Carnell Literary Agency, 
	Rowneybury Bungalow, 
	near Old Harlow, 
	Essex CM20 2EX

Kenneth Bulmer comments on SF:

"If in an unwary moment I open one of my early books I find great difficulty in identifying with the writer. The immediate purpose of the writer appears plain enough; he is dazzled by a vision of what this literature called SF might achieve, and is concerned to express this vision in terms than available to him. There is a genuine feeling; but he is handicapped by environment, editorial prejudice, and lack of data. There is an unfortunate assumption that other people will readily share his insights, that the vision is so self-evident it must be conveyed. His own interests in the fascinating details of, for instance, the future, space and time travel, the interactions and potentialities of the human mind and spirit, appear to over shadow what he is driving at. Imperceptive, top-of-the-head critics have said that most of the writer's work is space opera; a closer reading will reveal this statement to be untenable. The vision of what SF might achieve remains, dimmed a little, it is true, by the current state of general SF, and this writer has in recent years turned to other interests, including the Fox books (as Adam Hardy) and adult fantasy, both incidentally, sharing that imaginative exploration of worlds unknown to the present day.

I have said many times, and will reiterate, that SF is not respectable but is responsible. I remain unconvinced that this statement has been grasped by those to whom it is addressed. If poetry and non-establishment fiction are literatures of revolt, then SF is also. But it is more than merely a literature against, for example, the dead hand of authoritarianism or outmoded sexual mores; it is a literature against the spoliation of man by mankind's creations, which is by inference by man himself. This is not quite the same order of protest. This does not mean that SF is less as literature but more, for it incorporates more of life and, to enlarge a cliché, the felt responses within the emotional reactions to the human condition.

One underlying theme in my work is the exploration of the feelings and reactions of people forced, by environment, other people, or inner compulsions, to perform acts and live lives far removed from what they would desire. As an introduction to my work I would instance the observation of a recent correspondent who remarked of my novels that they are filled with compassion all too often lacking in other works of SF."