T. L. Sherred

Thomas L. Sherred (August 27, 1915 – April 16, 1985) was an American science fiction writer and the author of a slim body of science fiction, consisting of a collection of stories, a novel, and the beginning of a novel that was completed by another author after Sherred's death in 1985. Sherred's stories were often set in Detroit and featured the down-to-earth laborers with whom the author was acquainted through his career in the automotive field, where he advanced from tool rooms to technical writing and public relations. He published few works of fiction, but his novella "E for Effort" (1947), about a time viewer, was voted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Algis Budrys wrote, "With one story, 'E for Effort', in the ASF [Astounding Science Fiction] of the wartime Forties, he handed the field such a knock that many old plinths are still loose in their sockets." Sherred published his only novel, Alien Island, in 1970. A darkly humorous tale, Alien Island revolves around the devastating events that occur when aliens covertly inhabit Earth. Budrys found it disappointing, saying "It reads padded, uncoordinated, and unintentionally whimsical." At his death in 1985, Sherred left an unfinished sequel to Alien Island, which author Lloyd Biggle, Jr. completed and published as Alien Main. His writing career ceased in 1971 after he suffered a mild stroke.