Richard Merlin Smith

Bewildering Stories biography

When I was thirteen I decided that I would go to Mars, having read much of the solar system literature of the time including an impressive book by Willy Ley and Chesley Bonestell. The word “astronaut” was little used or known then but that’s what I wanted to be.

Years later, having missed the astronaut calling, I managed to fall into a job at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and was thrilled to “visit” most of the planets in our solar system albeit vicariously.

My hobbies include epigraphic studies and ray-trace rendering. I have created the cover illustrations for the first four volumes of an opus on the mytho-historical record by author Dwardu Cardona.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Merlin Smith

Bewildering Stories bibliography