Zach Hughes
The most published, underpaid, and unknown writer in America — by his own cheerful admission.
Zach Hughes was the science-fiction working name of the astonishingly prolific Hugh Zachary, an Oklahoma-born author who wrote across nearly every genre under a small army of pseudonyms. Under the Hughes byline he turned out reliably entertaining space adventures and post-apocalyptic tales throughout the 1970s, '80s, and beyond.
Novels like For Texas and Zed, Killbird, Gold Star, and Closed System trade in classic mid-list SF pleasures: lone protagonists, strange planets, lost colonies, and the long cold reach of deep space. His stories were often surprisingly dark beneath the brisk paperback surface, with a recurring fascination for a universe where Earth has gambled everything on the stars.
Hughes never courted prestige — he wrote to deliver a good ride, and he delivered a great many. Expect unpretentious, fast-moving classic SF from a craftsman who knew exactly how to keep a reader turning pages. A solid pick for fans of paperback-era space adventure.
- For fans of classic paperback space adventure
- Brisk, readable storytelling
- Surprisingly dark undercurrents
