After serving with the Committee of Public Information and the US Army during World War I, Leinster turned to free-lance writing and in 1919 published his first work, The Runaway Skyscraper, an innovative work of science fiction. During the 1920's and 1930's, Leinster contributed hundreds of stories, serials and novels to the science fiction pulp magazines such as Weird Tales and Astounding Stories. An inventive and prolific author, Leinster produced over 1500 short stories, 40 novels and numerous essays. Writing under his real name of Wll F. Jenkins, he also produced a number of Western novels and stories. He is credited with introducing the concept of parallel universes and foresaw the advent of the Internet decades before it was a reality. He was also a great influence on other SF writers such as Isaac Asimov and Robert Sheckley. In 1937, he won the Liberty Award for A Very Nice Family and in 1956 he was the recipient of the Hugo Award for Exploration Team. He also wrote radio and TV scripts which inspired such shows as The Time Tunnel. His works include The Mad Planet (1920), The Red Dust (1921), The Strange People (1928), The Fifth Dimension Catapult (1931), The Incredible Invasion (1936), First Contact (1945), The Last Spaceship (1949), The Forgotten Planet (1954), Men Into Space (1956), Stopover in Space (1966), Miners in the Sky (1967) and Timeslips!. |
