Cleve Cartmill (June 21, 1908 in
Platteville, Wisconsin
Platteville is the largest city in Grant County in southwestern Wisconsin. The population was 11,836 at the 2020 census, up from 11,224 at the 2010 census. Much of this growth is likely due to the enrollment increase of the University of Wisc ...
– February 11, 1964 in
Orange County, California
Orange County is located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third-most-populous county in California, the sixth-most-populous in the United States, a ...
) was an American
writer of science fiction and
fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...
short stories
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...
. He is best remembered for what is sometimes referred to as "the Cleve Cartmill affair",
when his 1944 story "
Deadline
Deadline(s) or The Deadline(s) may refer to:
* Time limit, a narrow field of time by which an objective must be accomplished
Arts, entertainment, and media Comics
* Deadline (DC Comics), a fictional villain
* ''Deadline'' (magazine), a Britis ...
" attracted the attention of the
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
by reason of its detailed description of a
nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...
similar to that being developed by the highly
classified Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...
.
Biography
Born in Wisconsin, Cartmill attended
Webb City High School in Missouri before moving out to California with his parents.
Before embarking on his career as a writer for
pulp magazine
Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazine ...
s, Cartmill had a wide number of jobs including
newspaperman
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...
,
radio operator
A radio operator (also, formerly, wireless operator in British and Commonwealth English) is a person who is responsible for the operations of a radio system. The profession of radio operator has become largely obsolete with the automation of ra ...
and
accountant
An accountant is a practitioner of accounting or accountancy.
Accountants who have demonstrated competency through their professional associations' certification exams are certified to use titles such as Chartered Accountant, Chartered Certifi ...
, as well as, ironically, a short spell at the American
Radium
Radium is a chemical element with the symbol Ra and atomic number 88. It is the sixth element in group 2 of the periodic table, also known as the alkaline earth metals. Pure radium is silvery-white, but it readily reacts with nitrogen (rather t ...
Products Company.
In the 1940 census he lists his profession as copy desk man in a newspaper office. Around this time he joined the informal writing club that met at
Robert Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein (; July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was an American science fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and naval officer. Sometimes called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was among the first to emphasize scientific accu ...
's house, the "
Mañana Literary Society." His friends
Anthony Boucher
William Anthony Parker White (August 21, 1911 – April 29, 1968), better known by his pen name Anthony Boucher (), was an American author, critic, and editor who wrote several classic mystery novels, short stories, science fiction, and radio d ...
and Roby Wentz, whom he had met in 1934 when they were all on the staff of the ''United Progressive News'', a local Los Angeles political tabloid, were also regular attendees at the weekly gatherings of Mañana. Heinlein provided him with an introduction to
John W. Campbell
John Wood Campbell Jr. (June 8, 1910 – July 11, 1971) was an American science fiction writer and editor. He was editor of ''Astounding Science Fiction'' (later called ''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'') from late 1937 until his death ...
, and subsequently many of his earliest stories, from 1941 onwards, were published in Campbell's magazines ''
Unknown
Unknown or The Unknown may refer to:
Film
* The Unknown (1915 comedy film), ''The Unknown'' (1915 comedy film), a silent boxing film
* The Unknown (1915 drama film), ''The Unknown'' (1915 drama film)
* The Unknown (1927 film), ''The Unknown'' (1 ...
'' and ''
Astounding Science Fiction
''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'' is an American science fiction magazine published under various titles since 1930. Originally titled ''Astounding Stories of Super-Science'', the first issue was dated January 1930, published by William C ...
''. This was at the start of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, when Campbell found himself short of material because many of his regular writers were away on
military service
Military service is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, air forces, and naval forces, whether as a chosen job (volunteer) or as a result of an involuntary draft (conscription).
Some nations (e.g., Mexico) require a ...
, from which Cartmill, who had suffered polio as a child and had a withered leg, was exempt for medical reasons.
Cartmill spent most of World War II as a rewrite man on the ''
Los Angeles Daily News
The ''Los Angeles Daily News'' is the second-largest-circulating paid daily newspaper of Los Angeles, California. It is the flagship of the Southern California News Group, a branch of Colorado-based Digital First Media.
The offices of the ''Dai ...
'', where he worked alongside Nieson Himmel and Roby Wentz. After the war he worked on the ''San Diego Journal''.
Writing career
Cartmill's writing career was undistinguished but competent. In his book ''A Requiem for Astounding'', Alva Rogers expresses the opinion that "Cartmill wrote with an easy and colloquial fluidity that made his stories eminently readable".
In Fred Smith's history of ''Unknown Worlds'', Smith praises several of Cartmill's
dark fantasy
Dark fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy literary, artistic, and cinematic works that incorporate disturbing and frightening themes of fantasy. It often combines fantasy with elements of horror or has a gloomy dark tone or a sense of horror and dr ...
stories such as "No Graven Image", "The Bargain" and "Hell Hath Fury", describing them as "original and entertaining". Cartmill's ''Unknown'' stories, like others appearing in that publication, tend to be either humorous tales or
horror
Horror may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Genres
*Horror fiction, a genre of fiction
** Japanese horror, Japanese horror fiction
**Korean horror, Korean horror fiction
* Horror film, a film genre
*Horror comics, comic books focusing o ...
stories. They deal with concepts such as
ghouls
A ghoul ( ar, غول, ') is a demon-like being or monstrous humanoid. The concept originated in pre-Islamic Arabian religion, associated with graveyards and the consumption of human flesh. Modern fiction often uses the term to label a certa ...
,
demons
A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology, and folklore; as well as in media such as comics, video games, movies, anime, ...
and
Death
Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
.
After the war he was an uncredited ghostwriter on several mystery novels by Los Angeles-based writers, including books by
Craig Rice,
Gypsy Rose Lee
Gypsy Rose Lee (born Rose Louise Hovick, January 8, 1911 – April 26, 1970) was an American burlesque entertainer, stripper and vedette famous for her striptease act. Also an actress, author, and playwright, her 1957 memoir was adapted into ...
, and
George Sanders
George Henry Sanders (3 July 1906 – 25 April 1972) was a British actor and singer whose career spanned over 40 years. His heavy, upper-class English accent and smooth, bass voice often led him to be cast as sophisticated but villainous chara ...
, as well as a couple of the
Leslie Charteris
Leslie Charteris (born Leslie Charles Bowyer-Yin, 12 May 1907 – 15 April 1993), was a British-Chinese author of adventure fiction, as well as a screenwriter.[typography
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), and ...](_blank)
.
During the course of his life Cartmill was married three times. In 1941 he married Jeanne Ruth Irvine. In 1948 he married Vida Jameson (1916-1988), the daughter of science fiction writer
Malcolm Jameson
Malcolm Routh Jameson (December 21, 1891 – April 16, 1945), commonly known as Malcolm Jameson, was an American science fiction author. An officer in the US Navy, he was active in American pulp magazines during the Golden Age of Science Fic ...
.
Alfred Bester
Alfred Bester (December 18, 1913 – September 30, 1987) was an American science fiction author, TV and radio scriptwriter, magazine editor and scripter for comic strips and comic books. He is best remembered for his science fiction, inclu ...
mentions meeting her in the company of her father before the war: "Now and then he brought along his pretty daughter, who turned everybody's head.". His final marriage, in 1954, was to Ingrid Asting.
His son,
Matt Cartmill
Matthew Cartmill is an American anthropologist and professor of anthropology in the College of Arts and Sciences at Boston University, where he formerly served as Chair of Anthropology.
Education and career
Cartmill was educated at Pomona Colleg ...
(b. 1943) is a Professor of Biological Anthropology at
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...
and a science writer to whom Heinlein partly dedicated his 1947 book ''
Rocket Ship Galileo
''Rocket Ship Galileo'', a juvenile science-fiction novel by the American writer Robert A. Heinlein, published in 1947, features three teenagers who participate in a pioneering flight to the Moon. It was the first in the Heinlein juveniles, a lo ...
''.
[Robert A. Heinlein, ''Rocket Ship Galileo'', title page verso, 1971 NEL Books]
Bibliography
Short Stories
*''Oscar'',
Unknown Worlds
''Unknown'' (also known as ''Unknown Worlds'') was an American pulp fantasy fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1943 by Street & Smith, and edited by John W. Campbell. ''Unknown'' was a companion to Street & Smith's science fiction pulp, '' ...
(February 1941)
*''
Deadline
Deadline(s) or The Deadline(s) may refer to:
* Time limit, a narrow field of time by which an objective must be accomplished
Arts, entertainment, and media Comics
* Deadline (DC Comics), a fictional villain
* ''Deadline'' (magazine), a Britis ...
'',
Astounding Science Fiction
''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'' is an American science fiction magazine published under various titles since 1930. Originally titled ''Astounding Stories of Super-Science'', the first issue was dated January 1930, published by William C ...
(March 1944)
*''No Graven Image''
*''The Bargain''
*''Hell Hath Fury''
*''You Can't Say That'',
New Tales of Space and Time (1951)
Books
* ''The Space Scavengers'' (Major 1975).
* ''Prelude to Armageddon'' (Darkside Press, 2003). Edited and introduced by
John Pelan
John C. Pelan (July 19, 1957 – April 12, 2021) was an American author, editor and publisher in the small press science-fiction, weird and horror fiction genres.
He first founded Axolotl Press in 1986 and published several volumes by authors su ...
.
References
External links
*
Reviewof ''Prelude to Armageddon'' by
Paul Di Filippo
Paul Di Filippo (born October 29, 1954) is an American science fiction writer. He is a regular reviewer for print magazines ''Asimov's Science Fiction'', ''The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction'', ''Science Fiction Eye'', ''The New York Re ...
in
Asimov's Science Fiction
''Asimov's Science Fiction'' is an American science fiction magazine which publishes science fiction and fantasy named after science fiction author Isaac Asimov. It is currently published by Penny Publications. From January 2017, the publication ...
.
"The ''Astounding'' Investigation: The Manhattan Project's Confrontation With Science Fiction Albert I. Berger 1984
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cartmill, Cleve
1908 births
1964 deaths
American accountants
American fantasy writers
American horror writers
American male journalists
20th-century American journalists
American science fiction writers
American male short story writers
20th-century American novelists
American male novelists
People from Platteville, Wisconsin
20th-century American short story writers
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers