Rex Thomas Vinson (October 22, 1935 – May 2000) was an English art teacher, artist and

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

author active in writing in the late 1960s and early 1970s, who wrote under the

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

of Vincent King.

Writing career

King's novels were published by Gollancz,

Tandem Tandem, or in tandem, is an arrangement in which a team of machines, animals or people are lined up one behind another, all facing in the same direction. The original use of the term in English was in ''tandem harness'', which is used for two ...

Sphere Books Sphere Books is the name of two British paperback publishers. History The original Sphere Books was launched in 1966 by Thomson Corporation. Sphere was sold to Pearson PLC in 1985 and became part of Penguin. The name was retired in 1990. In 19 ...

and

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in England, and

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in the United States. His short fiction was published in

John Carnell Edward John Carnell (8 April 1912 – 23 March 1972) was a British science fiction editor known for editing ''New Worlds'' in 1946 then from 1949 to 1963. He also edited ''Science Fantasy'' from the 1950s. After the magazines were sold to anothe ...

's ''

New Writings in SF ''New Writings in SF'' was a series of thirty British science fiction original anthologies published from 1964 to 1977 under the successive editorships of John Carnell from 1964 to 1972 (the last volume with the aid of Diane Lloyd) and Kenneth Bulm ...

'' series. Some of his work has been translated into French, Spanish and German. His most successful book was his novel ''Candy Man'' (1971), which went through a number of editions in the United Kingdom, the United States, and other countries, and was a selection of the UK

Science Fiction Book Club Bookspan LLC is a New York–based online Bookselling, bookseller, founded in 2000. Bookspan began as a joint endeavor by Bertelsmann and WarnerMedia, Time Warner. Bertelsmann took over control in 2007, and a year later, sold its interest to N ...

in 1972.

John Clute John Frederick Clute (born 12 September 1940) is a Canadian-born author and critic specializing in science fiction and fantasy literature who has lived in both England and the United States since 1969. He has been described as "an integral part o ...

, writing in ''

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'' (SFE) is an English language reference work on science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and f ...

'', said that his later novels "tend to combine elements of epic and grotesque sf adventure with a characteristically English darkness of emotional colouring ... and a tendency towards downbeat conclusions."

Bibliography

Novels

*''Light a Last Candle'' (1969) *''Candy Man'' (1971) *''Another End'' (1971) *''Time Snake and Superclown'' (1976)

Short stories

*"Defense Mechanism" (1966) *"The Wall to End the World" (1967) *"Testament" (1968) *"The Eternity Game" (1969) *"Report from Linelos" (1969) *"The Discontent Contingency" (1971)

References

* * 1935 births 2000 deaths English science fiction writers 20th-century English novelists {{UK-novelist-stub