Raymond Zinke Gallun was an American science fiction writer. Gallun (rhymes with "balloon") was born in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. 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. 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. His first book, People Minus X, was published in 1957 by Simon & Schuster, followed by The Planet Strappers in 1961 (Pyramid). Gallun was honored with the I-CON Lifetime Achievement Award in 1985 at I-CON IV; the award was later renamed The Raymond Z. Gallun Award. A posthumous autobiography, Starclimber, authored in part by Gallun and completed by Jeffrey M. Elliot, was published in September 2007. Source: Wikipedia