Raymond Z. Gallun
American writer (1911–1994)

Raymond Zinke Gallun (March 22, 1911 – April 2, 1994) was an American science fiction writer.
Early life
Gallun (rhymes with "balloon") was born in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, the son of Adolph and Martha Zinke Gallun. He graduated from high school in 1928. He left college after one year and travelled in Europe, living a drifter's existence, working a multitude of jobs around the world in the years leading up to World War II.
Career
Gallun wrote his first two stories, "The Space Dwellers" and "The Crystal Ray" (both published in 1929), at age 16. He was among the stalwart group of early sci-fi pulp writers who popularized the genre. He sold many popular stories to pulp magazines in the 1930s. "Old Faithful" (1934) was his first noted story. "The Gentle Brain" was published in "Science Fiction Quarterly" under the pseudonym Arthur Allport.
His first book, People Minus X, was published in 1957 by Simon & Schuster, followed by The Planet Strappers in 1961 (Pyramid). The Ballantine collection issued in 1978, The Best of Raymond Z. Gallun, provides a selection of his early work.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3421205. VIAF identifies the subject as 57134215. The Library of Congress control number is n81054047. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1911, 1994, 1928 and 1929.
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This entry incorporates text from “Raymond Z. Gallun” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.