Chad Oliver

{{short description|American novelist}} {{Use mdy dates|date=October 2025}} {{More citations needed|date=August 2020}}{{Infobox writer  | name = Chad Oliver | image = Chad Oliver 1953.jpg | imagesize = | caption = Chad Oliver c, 1953 | pseudonym = | birth_name = | birth_date = March 30, 1928 | birth_place = Cincinnati, Ohio | death_date = August 9, 1993 (age 65) | death_place = Austin, Texas | occupation = {{flatlist| * Writer * anthropologist * professor }} | period = 1940s–1980s | genre = Science fiction, Western | subject = | movement = | website = }}

'''Symmes Chadwick Oliver''' (March 30, 1928 – August 9, 1993) was an American anthropologist and science fiction and Western writer.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Collins|first=S. G|date=2004|title=Scientifically Valid and Artistically True: Chad Oliver, Anthropology, and Anthropological SF|journal=Science-Fiction Studies|language=English|volume=31|pages=243–263|issn=0091-7729|oclc=109862666}}</ref> He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. His father was a surgeon and his mother a nurse. When he was young he had rheumatic fever and as a result spent considerable time at home, a time during which he became interested in science fiction. He spent most of his life in Austin, Texas where he was twice chairman of the department of anthropology of the University of Texas. He was also one of the founders of the Turkey City Writer's Workshop. He first attended the university in 1946 as a student and, apart from a brief sojourn to UCLA to obtain his Ph.D., he remained there in some capacity until his death, 47 years later.

He first had a story published in 1950. His science fiction is generally classified as anthropological science fiction because he often used insights from his professional work to inform his fictional writing.<ref name=":0" />

An avid fly fisherman, Professor Oliver supported the Guadalupe River Chapter of Trout Unlimited and the cold water fishery downstream from Canyon Dam. Numerous scenes in his writings made reference to actions and experiences related to fishing in moving water (e.g. wading a river in "Shores of Another Sea").

==Bibliography==

===Novels === * ''Mists of Dawn'' (1952) * ''Shadows in the Sun'' (1954) * ''The Winds of Time'' (1957) * ''Unearthly Neighbors'' (1960, revised in 1984) * ''The Wolf is My Brother'' (1967) * ''The Shores of Another Sea'' (1971) * ''Giants in the Dust'' (1976) * ''Broken Eagle'' (1989) * ''The Cannibal Owl'' (1994)

===Collections === * ''Another Kind'' (1955) * ''The Edge of Forever'' (1971) * ''A Star Above and Other Stories'' (2003) * ''Far from This Earth and Other Stories'' (2003)

===Selected short fiction=== * "Transfusion" (1959) * "Blood's a Rover" in Robert Silverberg (ed), ''Deep Space'', 1976. Not to be confused with a proposed novel of the same title by Harlan Ellison. * "The Shore of Tomorrow", novelette in ''Startling Stories'' March, 1953

== External links == {{wikiquote}}

* {{ISFDB name}} * [https://archive.today/20121215011501/http://libraryasp.tamu.edu/cushing/collectn/lit/science/sci-fi/cbsff/contents.htm A comprehensive bibliography] of Chad Oliver, including two interviews. * [http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/oliver_chad Biographical entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]

== References ==

<references />{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oliver, Chad}} Category:1928 births Category:1993 deaths Category:20th-century American novelists Category:American male novelists Category:American science fiction writers Category:Western (genre) writers Category:Novelists from Texas Category:American male short story writers Category:20th-century American short story writers Category:20th-century American male writers Category:20th-century American anthropologists