Richard S. Shaver

Richard S. Shaver (1907–1975) became one of the strangest phenomena in science-fiction history when, from 1945, editor Ray Palmer promoted his Amazing Stories tales of the ‘deros’, degenerate beings in caverns beneath the earth, as literal truth, igniting the sensational ‘Shaver Mystery’ that boosted circulation and split fandom. He spent his last years on ‘rock books’ he believed held ancient images. A genuinely unique figure of the pulp era.