Книга: Desmond Shaw «Labour, the giant with the feet of clay»

(1877-1960)

   Irish novelist, poet, founder of the International Institute for Psychical Research (1934), and author of many works on the afterlife and several sf novels. Democracy (1919) predicts a revolution in the UK. The DYSTOPIAN Ragnarok (1926) envisages the destruction of civilization through a world WAR fought by armies equipped with radio-controlled planes and poisonous gases, the narrative concentrating on the derring-do of futuristic fighter pilots. His pessimism continued in Chaos (1938), which prophesies a future war between the UK and Germany. World-Birth (1938), possibly stimulated by the works of Olaf STAPLEDON, describes the troubled future history of mankind and the eventual development of an ideal state. This concluding optimism surfaces again in Black Dawn (1944), where world peace is the dream. His earlier works include two fantasies: Echo (1927) is a memory of past incarnation (REINCARNATION) and Gods (1921) centres on industrial exploitation. Tales of the Little Sisters Of Saint Francis (coll 1929) includes some fantasy.

   JE

   See also: WEAPONS.