Harl Vincent

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Harl Vincent (October 19, 1893–May 5, 1968) was the pen name of Harold Vincent Schoepflin, an American mechanical engineer and science fiction writer. He was part of the first generation of writers to appear regularly in the pulp science fiction magazines, publishing his first story, “The Golden Girl of Munan”, in the June 1928 issue of Amazing Stories.

Vincent was born in New York City in 1893. He married Ruth Hoff, and they had two children, a son and a daughter. Vincent worked as a mechanical engineer for Westinghouse, specializing in the installation of large electrical apparatus.

Vincent’s writing career began after he began reading Hugo Gernsback’s pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories. Vincent’s first published story, “The Golden Girl of Munan”, appeared in the June 1928 issue of Amazing. Over the next fourteen years, Vincent published over seventy science fiction stories. Although most of his work appeared in the early science fiction magazines, he appeared twice in the general fiction pulp magazine Argosy.

Although he ceased writing in the early 1940s, Vincent remained involved in science fiction. After moving to Los Angeles, Vincent joined the Los Angeles Fantasy Society and the Count Dracula Society, as well as attending local science fiction conventions. Vincent resumed writing late in life, publishing the novel The Doomsday Planet in 1966 and the story “Invader” in the September 1967 issue of If.

Vincent died in Los Angeles on May 5, 1968 of emphysema and pneumonia complications.

[edit] Works by Harl Vincent

• “The Golden Girl of Munan”, Amazing Stories, June 1928. Reprinted in Rainbow Fantasia, eds. Forrest J. Ackerman and Anne Hardin; Sense of Wonder Press, 2001.
• "Old Crompton's Secret", Astounding Stories of Super-Science, February 1930.
• "The Copper-Clad World", Astounding Stories, September 1931.
• “Red Twilight”, Argosy, September 13 - 27, 1931. Reprinted in Red Twilight/World's End; Starmont, 1991.
• "Creatures of Vibration", Astounding Stories, January 1932.
• "Once in a Blue Moon", Amazing Stories Quarterly, Winter 1932. Reprinted in Rainbow Fantasia.
• "Vulcan's Workshop", Astounding Stories, June 1932.
• "Wanderer of Infinity", Astounding Stories, March 1933. Reprinted in The Pulps: Fifty Years of American Pop Culture, ed. Tony Goodstone; Chelsea House, 1976.
• “Rex” Astounding Stories, June 1934. Reprinted in The Coming of the Robots, ed. Sam Moskowitz; Collier Books, 1963, and Machines that Think, eds. Isaac Asimov, Patricia S. Warrick, and Martin H. Greenberg; Holt, Rinehart and Winston, January 1984.
• "Prowler of the Wastelands", Astounding Stories, April 1935. Reprinted in Strange Signposts, eds. Roger Elwood and Sam Moskowitz; Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966.
• The Doomsday Planet, Tower Publishing, 1966.

[edit] References

• Ackerman, Forrest J., “In Memoriam: Harl Vincent”, in Nebula Award Stories Four, Poul Anderson, ed.; Doubleday, 1969.
• Bleiler, Everett F. and Richard Bleiler, Science Fiction: The Gernsback Years; Kent State University Press, 1998.

[edit] External links

• Harl Vincent at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• ”Creatures of Vibration” at Project Gutenberg
• Astounding Stories of Super Science, February 1930 at Project Gutenberg — Includes the Harl Vincent story “Old Crompton’s Secret”
• ”The Copper-Clad World” at Project Gutenberg
• ”Vulcan's Workshop” at Project Gutenberg