Forgotten Authors: H. B. Fyfe
Horace Brown Fyfe, Jr. who published under then name H.B. Fyfe, was born on September 30, 1918 in Jersey City, New Jersey. He was educated at Stevens Academy before attending Columbia University. Fyfe served in World War II and earned a Bronze Star. Fyfe’s day job was working as a laboratory assistant and a draftsman.
Fyfe began publishing in 1940, with the short story “Locked Out,” which appeared in the February issue of Astounding. Later that year, he published the short story “Hold That Comet!” in collaboration with F.H. Hauser. This was Fyfe’s only collaboration and Hauser’s only science fiction sale. He returned to college after the war and married Adeline Doherty in 1946.
Fyfe may be best known for his stories of the Bureau of Special Trading, which featured alien bureaucrats who were generally outwitted by the humans who they were attempting to stymie. His novel D-99, was unrelated to the BTS series, but it was similar in tone, although Rich Horton commented “That whole aspect of the book is wildly sexist, in a vaguely Mad Men-ish fashion.” Given that Campbell appreciated stories that demonstrated human superiority to aliens, it isn’t surprising that Fyfe’s fiction found a home in Astounding and Analog.
