Fox B. Holden is one of those mysterious Science Fiction writers who we know so little about. His bio from Thrilling Wonder Stories (Winter 1945) shows a young man in uniform. Having sold his first story, the author tells of putting away his typewriter to join Uncle Sam in the army. He also mentions Middlebury College so we can assume he is somewhere around the age of twenty, which makes his date of birth circa 1925. If this is true, then his first publication in the Probability Zero section of Astounding Science Fiction (“Noise is Beautiful”, February 1943) may have happened while still in High School. This was the only time Holden would sell anything to the great John W. Campbell. His future lie in the adventure SF Pulps, not Astounding.
“Stop, Thief!” (Thrilling Wonder Stories (Winter 1945)
“Sidewinders From Sirius” (Planet Stories, November 1950) was Holden’s return. Planet Stories is the magazine I know him from best but he as often sold to William Hamling at Imagination as well as a sprinkling at other magazines.
“The Builders” (Imagination, February 1951)
“The Death Star” (Super Science Stories, April 1951)
“Yachting Party” (Imagination, January 1952)
“Hideout” (Imagination, May 1952)
“Milk Run” (Space Stories, April 1953)
“Here We Lie” (Startling Stories, June 1953)
The Time Armada (Imagination, October–November 1953) is Holden’s only novel. It was serialized in two parts in Imagination. He also go the Author intro where he puts my suppositions to rest. he was born in 1923 in Rochester, N. Y. At Middlebury he began studying aeronautics engineering then switched to liberal arts. (He also began writing Sf for the Pulps.) He started his military career in the Air Corps but ended it driving a tank. He finished his B. A. and then became a newsman.
“Beyond the X Eliptic” (Planet Stories, November 1953)
“Earthmen Ask No Quarter” (Imagination, December 1953)
“The Woman-Stealers of Thrayx” (Planet Stories, January 1954)
“The Man the Tech-Men Made” (Planet Stories, March 1954) cover story with a Kelly Freas cover.
“A Gift For Terra” (IF, September 1954)
“Down Went McGinty” (Planet Stories, Fall 1954)
“Task Mission” (IF, April 1955)
“A Matter of Order” (IF, August 1955)
“Dearest Enemy” (IF, October 1956) And with “Dearest Enemy” Fox B. Holden disappears. At around the age of forty-one or so, it is unlikely he died. Perhaps he had finally given up on writing Science Fiction. For the years of 1953 and 1954 he might have made a small living at it but I suspect other ventures drew him away. Never rising above the cheaper magazines, he might have seen no future and walked away. With the death of the Pulps and the implosion of SF titles, he simply may have seen nowhere for him to go.
