June 21 is the birthday of Cleve Cartmill (1908-1964). Cartmill wrote science fiction in the nineteen forties. He cointinued to write into the middle fifties, although his output slowed significantly.

Robert Heinlein hosted an informal group of writers at his house in California in the early forties before the war. Cartmill attended. Heinlein introduced Cartmill to John Campbell, and most of Cartmill’s work appeared in with Astounding or Unknown.

Cartmill is best remembered today for the story “Deadline”. One could argue that he is only remembered today because of that story.

The story concerns a secret project to build a nuclear weapon. Cartmill supposedly used a readily available textbook for the background. The story was published in the March 1944 issue of Astounding.  It had a number of similarities to the then still top secret Manhattan Project.

Woops.

Legend has it that the FBI paid a visit to the offices of Astounding, where they tangled with John W. Campbell.

And lost.

Campmbell supposedly was able to cemonstrate that everything Cartmill had included in his story was from  sources that were readily available to everyone.

Back in the day (2003), Darkside Press published what was to be the first volume in The Collected Fantastic Fiction of Cleve Cartmill: Prelude to Armageddon. “Deadline” is included. Sadly, no other volumes were published in this series. The book is long out of print. There are no other collections of Cartmill that I or the ISFDB are aware of. The ‘Zon says a paperback collection entitled Deadline and Other Controversial SF Classics was publishedin 2011.  It’s out of print.

Hey, John Betancourt! Maybe Wildside Press could do a Cartmill MEgapack?

Cartmill consistently sold to Campbell. And in spite of what people in certain circles say about Campbell’s writers, I tend to like the things he published. I’d like to be able to read more of Cartmill’s work. I read :Deadline: when i was in high school. I don’t remember a lot about it, but I do remember that I enjoyed it.