Breuer, Miles J(ohn) 1888-1947

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BREUER, Miles J(ohn) 1888-1947

PERSONAL: Born 1888, in Chicago, IL; died 1947, in CA; married; children: two daughters, one son. Education: Attended University of Texas, Austin; Rush Medical College, Chicago, M.D.

CAREER: Physician, specializing in diagnosis and internal medicine, Lincoln, NE. Military service: Served in Medical Corps during World War I; became lieutenant.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

(With Jack Williamson) The Girl from Mars, Stellar (New York, NY), 1929.

(With Jack Williamson) The Birth of a New Republic (originally appeared in Amazing Stories Quarterly), P. D. A. (New Orleans, LA), 1981.

Also author of novel Paradise and Iron, published in Amazing Stories Quarterly, summer, 1930.

OTHER

Stories included in anthologies The Garden of Fear and Other Stories, edited by William L. Crawford, Crawford (Los Angeles, CA), 1945; (with Clare Winger Harris) Away from the Here and Now, edited by Harris, Dorrance (Philadelphia, PA), 1947; The Big Book of Science Fiction, edited by Groff Conklin, Crown (New York, NY), 1950; Science Fiction Adventures in Dimension, edited by Conklin, Vanguard (New York, NY), 1953, published as Adventures in Dimension, Grayson (London, England), 1955; Science Fiction Adventures in Mutation, edited by Conklin, Vanguard, 1955; Fantasia Mathematica, edited by Clifton Fadiman, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY),1958; The Mathematical Magpie, edited by Fadiman, Simon & Schuster, 1959; and Great Science Fiction about Doctors, edited by Conklin and Noah D. Fabricant, Macmillan (New York, NY), 1963. Contributor of stories to periodicals, including Amazing, Amazing Stories Quarterly, Science Wonder Stories, Wonder Stories, Astounding, Future, Comet, and Tales of Wonder.

SIDELIGHTS: American physician J. Miles Breuer authored a few science fiction novels, including The Girl from Mars, and dozens of stories, most of which appeared in the magazine Amazing between 1927 and 1942. "Breuer wrote some of the most intriguing tales that appeared in the early volumes of Amazing Stories," declared Twentieth-Century Science-Fiction Writers essayist Walter Gillings. "His stories often pointed a moral, yet were never mere parables; his characters were genuinely human rather than superhuman, and he wrote with a conviction that was rare in those days. He was also something of a poet. Though he had a weakness for plots involving relativity and the fourth dimension . . . he produced some novel variations on other familiar themes."

Many of Breuer's stories reflect his medical knowledge, and he dealt with psychological themes more often than other science fiction writers of his generation did. Breuer's concern about the effect of technological advances on human beings is reflected in "The Hungry Guinea-Pig," while the dangers of rabid nationalism are treated in "The Gostak and the Doshes." The author's fear of a future world where logic would rule and where art, emotion, and beauty would have no place is revealed in "Rays and Men," published in 1929. A contributor to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: An Illustrated A to Z referred to Breuer as "an intelligent through somewhat crude writer . . . particularly strong in his articulation of fresh ideas."