Ralph Williams
Ralph Williams Slone, born in 1914, was a notable science fiction writer who published under the name Ralph Williams. He lived in Homer, Alaska, where he worked as a station manager for the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) and engaged in fishing and hunting, activities that informed his writing. Slone's first published story, "Emergency Landing," appeared in 1939 in *Astounding Science Fiction*, and he maintained a long correspondence with the magazine's editor, John W. Campbell, contributing many stories throughout his career. His works are characterized by imaginative themes involving aliens and technology, such as in "Business as Usual, During Alterations," where an alien gift to humanity leads to unexpected consequences. In addition to writing fiction, Slone's article "How Did This Happen to Me?" was featured in *Bluebook*. Tragically, he died in a fishing accident in 1959. Despite his relatively modest education and background, Slone's stories, including posthumously nominated works, reflect a unique perspective within the science fiction genre.
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Ralph Williams
Writer
- Born: 1924
- Died: July 25, 1959
- Place of death: Kachemak Bay, Alaska
Biography
Ralph Williams Slone was born in 1914 and wrote science fiction under the name of Ralph Williams. He never went to college, had thirteen children, and lived in Homer, Alaska. Slone worked for the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) for many years as a station manager and spent two weeks out of every year as a gill-netter. He both hunted and fished for recreation, using his experience as background material for the story “The Head Hunters” (Astounding Science Fiction, October, 1951).
He sold his first story, “Emergency Landing,” to Astounding in 1939. The story was selected by Groff Conklin for his 1950 anthology The Big Book of Science Fiction, which was reprinted in 1978 as The Classic Book of Science Fiction. The main character is working for the Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) during the graveyard shift at a remote airfield in 1939 when an airship from either the future or a parallel world lands. One of the crew members asks the CAA worker where the nearest large body of water is, and they quickly take off.
Slone corresponded with John W. Campbell, the editor of Astounding, for twenty years and sold the vast majority of his science fiction to that magazine. In the 1960’s, Campbell selected Slone’s short story “Business as Usual, During Alterations,” which originally appeared in the July, 1958, issue of the magazine, for his anthologies Prologue to Analog and Analog Anthology. The premise is that aliens give humans a matter duplicator, similar to the replicator in Star Trek: The Next Generation, for the purpose of destroying human society. The outcome, however, is different from what the aliens expect. It received considerable attention in 2005 when technology columnist Kevin Maney quoted from the story in the June 15, 2005, issue of USA Today for his report on a scientist working on just such a device.
Another example of a story in which aliens try to interfere with the course of human development is the alternate history story “Pax Galactica” (Astounding, November, 1952) in which they seed the atmosphere with a chemical inhibitor to prevent humans from discovering gunpowder. Slone’s article “How Did This Happen to Me?” appeared in the January, 1954, issue of Bluebook under his full name, and he also sold two science-fiction stories to The Worlds of If.
Slone contracted type two diabetes as an adult, and died in a fishing accident with one of his sons during a severe storm in Kachemak Bay on July 25, 1959. His short story “Cat and Mouse,” (Astounding, June, 1959) was the subject of H. R. van Dongen’s cover and interior illustrations and was posthumously nominated for a Hugo Award. Ironically, it is one of only a few of his stories that has never been reprinted.