A. Bertram Chandler: The Writer on Board

Arthur Bertram Chandler is an Australian science fiction author. He was born in Aldershot, England, on March 28, 1912. He is also known by his other pet names Andrew Dunstan, S.H.M. and George Whitely.

Chandler was an English marine officer who sailed around the world. In 1956, he arrived in Australia and soon became a legal citizen of the country. He was the captain of several ships in the New Zealand and Australian merchant navies and was the last captain of the HMAS Melbourne, an Australian aircraft carrier. It seems that A. Bertram Chandler had his typewriter on board, and from there he worked on his stories.

A. Bertram was able to produce more than 40 science fiction masterpieces and over 200 short works of science fiction. He was famous for his stories ‘Empress of Outer Space’ (1965), ‘False Fatherland’ (1969), ‘The Dark Dimensions’ (1971), ‘The Big Black Mark’ (1976) and ‘The Bitter Pill’ (1975). Other novels include ‘The Hamelin Plague’ (1963), ‘Glory Planet’ (1964), ‘The Alternate Martians’ (1965), and ‘The Frontier of the Dark’ (1984).

He has received a series of awards for his work, making him more famous as an author than as a sailor. His awards include the Ditmars, an Australian science fiction achievement award. His two novels 'Giant Killer’ and 'The Cage' were given distinction as some of the greatest science fiction stories during 1950s. He is also highly admired in Japan where he won the SEIUN SHO, a very prestigious award for science fiction works.