Murray Leinster

Book excerpt: Will F. Jenkins, known to science fiction fans by his penname Murray Leinster, was among the most prolific American writers of the 20th century. "The Dean of Science Fiction," as he was sometimes known, published more than 1,500 short stories and 100 books in a career spanning more than fifty years. This biography, written by his two youngest daughters, chronicles Murray Leinster's private and literary life from his first writings for The Smart Set and early pulp magazines such as Argosy, Amazing Stories and Astounding Stories, through the golden age of science fiction in the 1930s through the 1950s, to his death in 1975. Included as appendices are his famous 1946 story "A Logic Named Joe" and 1954 essay "To Build a Robot Brain."