Kenneth Bulmer

Kenneth Bulmer was a prolific British writer and editor best known for science fiction, adventure, and the many pen names under which he published. Hook refers to his Ryder Hook space-opera sequence, whose first four novels appeared under the pseudonym Tully Zetford. The series begins with Whirlpool of Stars, published by New English Library in 1974, and continues through The Boosted Man, Star City, and The Virility Gene. Its roaming protagonist, Ryder Hook, becomes entangled with interstellar corporations, coercive labor, and the enhanced humans known as Boosted Men. Bulmer later continued the sequence with six further books that were published in German, while the opening quartet was collected there as Ryder Hook: Der Nova-Mann. This was one strand of a much larger career that also included the Dray Prescot planetary romances under the name Alan Burt Akers. He also edited New Writings in SF, shaping the genre while steadily supplying it. His use of pseudonyms let distinct adventure series develop recognizable identities of their own.