Fontenay, Charles L. 1917–

(Charles Louis Fontenay)

PERSONAL: Born March 17, 1917, in Sao Paulo, Brazil; son of Charles Robert and Miriam (Steel) Fontenay; married Glenda Lucille Miller, October 25, 1942 (marriage ended); married Martha Mae Howard (a social worker), September 30, 1962; children: (second marriage) Margarethe Louise, Charles Howard Blake. Education: Attended Vanderbilt University, 1966–68. Hobbies and other interests: Painting in watercolor and oil, chess, cooking Chinese foods, gardening, Korean karate, hypnotism.

ADDRESSES: Office—1708 20th Ave. N., Apt. D, St. Petersburg, FL 33713.

CAREER: Daily Messenger, Union City, TN, from reporter to sports editor to city editor, 1936–40; drug store soda-jerk in Washington, DC, 1940; Associated Press, editor in Nashville, TN, 1941–42; Press-Chronicle, Johnson City, TN, sports editor, 1946; Tennessean, Nashville, TN, political reporter, 1946–64, city editor, 1964–68, rewriter, 1968–87. Military service: U.S. Army, 1942–46; fought in the South Pacific; became captain.

AWARDS, HONORS: Southern Regional Education Board fellowship, 1966–67; Golden Duck Award, for Kipton and the Tower of Time.

WRITINGS:

Twice upon a Time (science fiction), Ace Books (New York, NY), 1958.

Rebels of the Red Planet (science fiction), Ace Books (New York, NY), 1961.

The Day the Oceans Overflowed (science fiction), Monarch Books (New York, NY), 1964.

Epistle to the Babylonians: An Essay on the Natural Inequality of Man (nonfiction), University of Tennessee Press (Knoxville, TN), 1969.

The Keyen of Fu Tze (nonfiction), Sherborne Institute, 1975.

Estes Kefauver: A Biography, University of Tennessee Press (Knoxville, TN), 1980.

Target: Grant, 1862 (science fiction), Silk Label (Unionville, NY), 1999.

Here, There and Elsewhen, Silk Label (Unionville, NY), 1999.

Modál: A Tale of Mind and Body, Love and Heroism, in a Possible Future World (science fiction), Silk Label (Unionville, NY), 2000.

Getting Back at Boo (science fiction), Silk Label (Unionville, NY), 2002.

Dionysos in Tears: A Tale of Destined Love … and Betrayal, iUniverse, 2003.

Contributor of science fiction short stories to periodicals, including If and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

"KIPTON CHRONICLES"; SCIENCE FICTION FOR YOUNG ADULTS

Kipton and the Ovoid, Royal Fireworks Press (Unionville, NY), 1996.

Kipton and the Tower of Time, Royal Fireworks Press (Unionville, NY), 1996.

Kipton in Wonderland, Royal Fireworks Press (Unionville, NY), 1996.

Kipton and the Voodoo Curse, Royal Fireworks Press (Unionville, NY), 1997.

Kipton and the Android, Royal Fireworks Press (Unionville, NY), 1997.

Kipton and the Christmas Gift, Royal Fireworks Press (Unionville, NY), 1997.

Kipton and the Caves of Mars, Royal Fireworks Press (Unionville, NY), 1998.

Kipton at the Martian Games, Royal Fireworks Press (Unionville, NY), 1998.

Kipton and the Martian Maidens, Royal Fireworks Press (Unionville, NY), 1999.

Kipton and the Delusions of Tante Else, Royal Fireworks Press (Unionville, NY), 1999.

Kipton and the Matter Transmitter, Royal Fireworks Press (Unionville, NY), 1999.

Kipton and the Monorail Murder, Royal Fireworks Press (Unionville, NY), 1999.

Kipton and the Riddle of Sandstone, Royal Fireworks Press (Unionville, NY), 1999.

Kipton on Phobos, Royal Fireworks Press (Unionville, NY), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS: Charles L. Fontenay is a former reporter who has been writing science fiction since the golden age of the genre back in the 1950s. His early works include Twice upon a Time, Rebels of the Red Planet, and The Day the Oceans Overflowed. After The Day the Oceans Overflowed, he abandoned the genre temporarily to concentrate on nonfiction works, including Epistle to the Babylonians: An Essay on the Natural Inequality of Man, in which he discusses his ideas about the rise and fall of civilizations. He has also written a book on Eastern philosophy, The Keyen of Fu Tze, and a biography on a Tennessean senator, Estes Kefauver: A Biography.

In the 1990s, Fontenay returned to science fiction, first by writing a series of young adult mystery stories set on Mars called the "Kipton Chronicles," and then by writing a time-travel novel for adults called Target: Grant, 1862 in which a twentieth-century man loyal to the memory of the Confederacy journeys back to the Civil War in order to assassinate General Ulysses S. Grant. This was followed by Modál: A Tale of Mind and Body, Love and Heroism, in a Possible Future World. Here, Fontenay describes a world in which civilization has been nearly destroyed because of the environmental effects of global warming called the "Great Change." The other central idea behind the novel, however, is based on a scientific theory that the human brain has several types of intelligence that are distinct from each other. The hero of the story must learn how to develop each of his "brains" in order to vanquish a despot who is holding the woman he loves. In the sequel to Modál, Getting Back at Boo, a guru named Soldier Boo has treasonous plans against the government, and it is left to two Modáls, Regal Stern and Coral Cordova, to hunt him down.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American History Illustrated, June, 1981, William Thomas Miller, review of Estes Kefauver: A Biography, p. 6.

Publishers Weekly, July 11, 1980, review of Estes Kefauver, p. 84.

School Library Journal, April, 2000, Lisa Prolman, review of Kipton and the Matter Transmitter, p. 134, and Elaine E. Knight, review of Kipton and the Riddle of Sandstone, p. 134.