Author Porges Arthur

if he ... picked the name out of the air, ... or had some ties to the Jewish Porges network." Now James Porges, his father, who worked at the Bell Telephone Company in Chicago, had four sons: Leonard, Irwin, Arthur, and Walter. Porges observed, "None had children, although all but me married rather late in life."[1] Porges's mother was Clara Kurzin, who died when he was nine. Porges's brother Irwin (1909-1998) was a biographer of the American author Edgar Rice Burroughs (The Man Who Created Tarzan). A creative sibling, Irwin studied piano and music arranging at a music conservatory, became a professional pianist with dance orchestras, and composed popular songs. Porges was most prolific during the mid-twentieth century, publishing most frequently in mystery magazines. He wrote many essays and non-fiction articles down the years.[1] Many of Porges's heroes do not survive. This element adds tension—for example, in his first published story, "The Rats" (1950), where mutated rats eventually overcome a lone survivor in a post-holocaust world. The publication of this story in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, began the working relationship between Porges and the editor Anthony Boucher. A noted author himself, Boucher helped Porges find his way in the writing world and in the 1950s influenced his writing style a great deal. Among the stories of this period was "The Ruum". Perhaps his best-known story, "The Ruum" deals with a human who is chased by an indestructible alien machine designed to capture specimens and keep them in suspended animation. Stories of the 1960s include "The Arrogant Vampire" (1961), "One Bad Habit" (1961), and "The Fanatic" (1964). His brother Irwin collaborated with him on one story, "A Touch of Sun" (1959). Porges also wrote at times under pseudonyms such as Peter Arthur, Pat Rogers, Maxwell Trent, Abel Jacobi, and Derek Page.[1] He wrote in several genres, with his science fiction/fantasy and mystery stories being most celebrated. His output of short stories numbers in the hundreds. A collection of his short stories, The Mirror and Other Strange Reflections (ISBN 1-55310-044-1) was published in 2002 by Ash-Tree Press. Porges read the works of such authors as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Saki, O. Henry, T. H. Huxley, Samuel Johnson, G. K. Chesterton, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London, H. G. Wells, Isaac Asimov, R. L. Stevenson, Charles Dickens and Edgar Wallace. The seventh episode, filmed in 1982, of the Soviet science fiction TV series This Fantastic World was based on one of the finest science fiction stories by Porges, "The Priceless Possession" and Oleg Lukyanov's story "Uncertainty Principle".[2]