John Lymington was born John Richard Newton Chance in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. He was a prolific writer of short stories

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

, children's literature

Children's literature

Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...

, mystery

Mystery fiction

Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term.1.It is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction— in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime mystery. Sometimes mystery books are nonfiction...

 and science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

s. An obituary in Ansible Link http://news.ansible.co.uk/a38.html credits Lymington with writing over 150 novels, 'including 20+ SF potboilers', adding that he 'made a steady income by delivering thrillers to Robert Hale (the publisher) at a chapter a week'.

Lymington's first book, Wheels in the Forest, was written in 1935. He also wrote Night of the Big Heat

Night of the Big Heat

Night of the Big Heat is a science fiction novel written in 1959 by John Lymington. It tells the story of an unnamed British island that is experiencing a bizarre and stifling heatwave.-Plot summary:...

in 1959. Several of his short stories were collected in The Night Spiders in 1964. Pseudonyms used by Lymington throughout his career included John Drummond, David C. Newton, Desmond Reid (see 'Sexton Blake') and Jonathan Chance. Brian Stableford suggested in the Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Literature (pp. 208) that the name Lymington was chosen 'in a blatant attempt to cash in' on John Wyndham's popularity.

Chance was educated in a private school in London, and subsequently attended a technical college with the intention of becoming a civil engineer, an ambition which he left behind to become a quantity surveyor. By the age of 21, he decided to give up this job and began to work full-time as a writer.

During his career with the RAF, which began in the summer of 1940, he became a flying instructor at South Cerney

South Cerney

South Cerney is a village and civil parish in the Cotswold district of Gloucestershire, 3 miles south of Cirencester and close to the border with Wiltshire. It had a population of 3,074 according to the 2001 census...

, Long Newnton

Long Newnton

Long Newnton is a small village in Gloucestershire, England, situated on the main road between Malmesbury and Tetbury. The hamlet has no shops just a church and between 30 and 60 houses. Approximately an hour from Bristol, Bath, Gloucester and Oxford so the nearest big towns or small cities are...

 and Bibury

Bibury

Bibury is a village and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is situated on the River Coln, about northeast of Cirencester.The Church of England parish church of Saint Mary is Saxon with altar additions...

 airfields http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=9247393359440112911,51.632989,-2.131984&time=&date=&ttype=&saddr=long+newnton,+gloucestershire,+united+kingdom&daddr=South+Cerney,+Cirencester,+Gloucestershire,+United+Kingdom+to:tetbury,+gloucestershire,+united+kingdom&sll=51.66276,-2.046204&sspn=0.178459,0.466919&ie=UTF8&ll=51.66302,-2.046085&spn=0.178457,0.466919&z=11&om=1 in the Cotswolds

Cotswolds

The Cotswolds are a range of hills in west-central England, sometimes called the Heart of England, an area across and long. The area has been designated as the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty...

. The three airfields were administrated under the Cerney office. In this role, he applied previous experience of flying, from as early as 1928. In 1943 he met his wife-to-be, Shirley Savill, at the time serving as a section officer in the WAAF

Women's Auxiliary Air Force

The Women's Auxiliary Air Force , whose members were invariably referred to as Waafs , was the female auxiliary of the Royal Air Force during World War II, established in 1939. At its peak strength, in 1943, WAAF numbers exceeded 180,000, with over 2,000 women enlisting per week.A Women's Royal Air...

 (Women's Auxiliary Air Force). They married on 22 July. In November of that year, Chance was given indefinite leave, and was invalided out with the permanent rank of Flight Lieutenant on 8 February 1944. He wrote about this time in his autobiography, Yellow Belly, published by Robert Hale in 1959.

After the war, he moved to Hampshire with his wife, where their three sons were born. The family moved to the Isle of Wight in 1956, to take up management of a pub.

The 'Bunst' books

Certain bibliographies include only the latter four of these as 'Bunst' books; however, all six involve the same principal characters.

• The Black Ghost (1947) (writing as David C Newton)
• The Dangerous Road (1948)
• Bunst and the Brown Voice (1950) (writing as John Newton Chance)
• Bunst the Bold (1950)
• Bunst and the Secret Six (1951)
• Bunst and the Flying Eye (1953)

Sci-fi/Fantasy

• Night of the Big Heat
  Night of the Big Heat
  Night of the Big Heat is a science fiction novel written in 1959 by John Lymington. It tells the story of an unnamed British island that is experiencing a bizarre and stifling heatwave.-Plot summary:...
  
  (1959)
• The Giant Stumbles (1960)
• The Grey Ones (1960)
• The Coming of Strangers (1961)
• A Sword Above the Night (1962)
• The Screaming Face (1963)
• The Sleep Eaters (1963)
• Froomb! (1964)
• The Star Witches (1965)
• The Green Drift (1965)
• The Waking of the Stone (1967)
• Ten Million Years to Friday (1967)
• The Light Benders (1968) (writing as Jonathan Chance)
• The nowhere place (1969)
• Give Daddy the Knife, Darling (1969)
• The Year Dot (1972)
• The Hole in the World (1974)
• A Spider in the Bath (1975)
• The Laxham Haunting (1976)
• Starseed on Eye Moor (1977)
• A Caller from Overspace (1979)
• Voyage of the Eighth Mind (1980)
• The Power Ball (1981)
• The Terror Version (1982)
• The Vale of Sad Banana (1984)

Wartime

Writing as John Drummond, in The Thriller Library (Amalgamated Press), a "short-lived title from the mid-1930s, running only 24 issues between July 1934 and June 1935". http://contento.best.vwh.net/paper/t368.htm#A15657

• Eight Came Back [Red Sword], (18 May 1940)
• Gestapo Spy Trap [Red Sword], (9 March 1940)
• One Man Air Raid [Red Sword], (6 April 1940)
• The Prisoner Dies at Dawn [Red Sword], (23 March 1940)
• Scourge of the Nazis [Red Sword], (20 April 1940)
• Spy Bait [Red Sword], (4 May 1940)

Sexton Blake

As John Drummond, he wrote a number of additions to the Sexton Blake

Sexton Blake

Sexton Blake is a fictional detective who appeared in many British comic strips and novels throughout the 20th century. He was described by Professor Jeffrey Richards on the BBC in The Radio Detectives in 2003 as "the poor man's Sherlock Holmes"...

 series: http://www.sextonblake.co.uk/blakebibliography.html. Note that 'Desmond Reid' appears to have been used as a catch-all pseudonym for this series, so it is possible that certain pieces credited to this name actually originated with him. This list includes only those pieces credited to John Drummond.

• The Essex Road Crime (May 1944), 3rd Series, Issue 71 (illustrated by Eric Parker)
• The Manor House Menace (Jul 1944), 3rd series, Issue 75 (illustrated by Eric Parker)
• The Tragic Case of the Station-Master's Legacy (Sep 1944), 3rd series, Issue 80 (illustrator unknown)
• The Riddle of the Leather Bottle (Oct 1944), 3rd series, Issue 82 (illustrator unknown)
• The Painted Dagger (Dec 1944), 3rd series, Issue 86 (illustrated by Eric Parker)
• The House on the Hill (Mar 1945), 3rd series, Issue 91 (illustrated by Eric Parker)
• At Sixty Miles per Hour (Apr 1945), 3rd series, Issue 94 (illustrator unknown)
• The Riddle of the Mummy Case (Jul 1945), 3rd series, Issue 100 (illustrated by Eric Parker)

Crime/Thriller

An incomplete list of these follows.

As John Newton Chance:

• The Psychic Trap
• The Death Importer
• Involvement in Austria
• Motive for a Kill
• The Mask of Pursuit (1967)
• The Dead Tale-Tellers
• The Love-hate Relation
• Bad Dream of Death
• Death Under Desolate
• Canterbury Killgrims
• Dead Men's Shoes
• Case of the Fear Makers
• Death Stalks the Cobbled Square
• The Bad Circle
• Twopenny Box
• Eye in Darkness
• Terror Train
• Spy on Spider
• The Man with Two Heads
• The Double Death
• The Monstrous Regiment
• The Cat Watchers
• The Hit Man
• Death Importer
• Death of the Wild Bird
• Death Watch Ladies
• End of an Iron Man
• The Hunting of Mr. Exe
• A Wreath of Bones
• The Running of the Spies
• The Farm Villains
• The Shadow Before
• The Black Widow
• Looking for Samson
• The Shadow in Pursuit
• The Hiller Weapon

TV/Radio/Film adaptations

'Night of the Big Heat' was adapted twice. The first, a 1960 TV adaptation set on Salisbury Plain, was directed by Cyril Coke and adapted from the book by Giles Cooper. The second, Night of the Big Heat (1967 film)

Night of the Big Heat (1967 film)

Night of the Big Heat is a 1967 British sci-fi horror film released by Planet Film Productions, based on a 1959 novel of the same name by John Lymington. It was released in the United States in 1971 under the title Island of the Burning Damned and was double-billed with All Monsters Attack...

, was a 94-minute UK feature film set on a remote Scottish island, directed by Terence Fisher and starring Christopher Lee, Patrick Allen and Peter Cushing.

External links