John Grimes

A. Bertram Chandler's John Grimes had a long and storied career in space. Starting out in the Federation Survey Service, Grimes rose through the ranks to achieve the rank of Captain before his fall from grace at the hands of mutineers. Subsequently he commanded traders and tramps, eventually starting his own shipping company, Far Traveller Couriers with his solid-gold space pinnace Little Sister. Brought back into the Survey Service as an undercover operative, he was able to clean up problems no Survey Service officer could be allowed to get involved with.

Chandler picks up Grimes's career in the Rim Worlds, where has become a Commodore in the Rim Worlds Navy and the Port Captain of Port Forlorn, chief port of the Rim Worlds Alliance. Something like 25 years has passed since the previous adventures; one assumes Chandler intended to fill in that gap at some point, but never got around to it before his untimely death in 1984. These tales of strange events on the Rim possess a weird vibe that's sure to tingle the Sense of Wonder of many a jaded SF reader.

Presented below in chronological order are ALL the Grimes adventures published during Chandler's lifetime. Most have been collected in book form, but you will find almost a dozen short stories, novelettes and novellas published in SF digests that have never appeared between the covers of a book. Many of these tales are as good or better than anything reprinted in books. It is unclear why these pieces were never collected. Perhaps Chandler never got around to organizing them as proper books before his death. The Science Fiction Book Club series of John Grimes omnibuses should incorporate these "lost" stories into the Grimes chronology for the first time.

I'd organized the stories into three sections: Grimes adventures in the Survey Service, comprising the books The Road to the Rim through The Big Black Mark. The next sub series finds Grimes scrambling to make a living as a tramp ship captain and courier, all the while executing covert operations for the Survey Service (not even aware of his status as an undercover operative until late in the sequence!) This period comprises the books from The Far Traveller through The Wild Ones. These two sequences take Grimes from a youth of 19 or 20 years into his early forties. Next we find an extended gap in the chronology. When Chandler resumes Grimes's story, at least 20 to 25 years have passed. Grimes has emigrated to the Rim Worlds, married, raised a family and been widowed or divorced. The final sequence finds Grimes a Commodore in the Rim Worlds Navy, commander of the survey ship Faraway Quest and Port Captain of Port Forlorn, the primary port in the Rim Worlds. The final sequence of tales begins with Into the Alternate Universe and ends with a duology consisting of The Dark Dimensions and The Way Back. At this point Grimes is in his middle to late seventies, and Faraway Quest has been lost, marooned on Earth circa 3500 BCE It is a fitting and proper place to end Grimes's career; he certainly deserves to retire and enjoy some peace and quiet with Sonya, his wife.

I've interspersed notes and observations in the timeline. Please feel free to e-mail me with questions, observations and corrections.

There is an extended gap in the chronology at this point. Grimes apparently married, had children, raised them to adulthood, was divorced or widowed, moved out to the Rim Worlds, became a Commodore in the Rim Worlds Navy, and eventually Port Captain of Port Forlorn, all before meeting Sonya Verrill in Into the Alternate Universe and starting a series of adventures that would take him from his early '60's to his late'70's.

Chandler left behind a few hints as to what he planned to do about documenting the roughly 20-year gap in the chronology. The first edition of The Wild Ones included excerpts from letters to his editors sent shortly before his death, discussing plans for the next Grimes novel, apparently to be titled The Faraway Quest. According to Chandler:

"Faraway Quest will be the Sister Sue's new name after Grimes sells her to the Rim Worlds navy for use as a survey ship. She plays a prominent part in all the late Grimes Period novels.

"The planets of the Rim Confederacy are Lorn, Faraway, Ultimo and Thule. To the Galactic East are the worlds of the Eastern Circuit - Tharn, Mellise, Grollor and Stree, which in the late Grimes Period are opened up to trade by Commodore Grimes, Rim World Naval Reserve. To the Galactic West are some antimatter planetary systems which neither I nor Grimes have done anything much about yet.

"A character who will make a reappearance in The Faraway Quest is Captain Craven, who was master of Delta Orionis (Delia O'Ryan) in the early Grimes novel The Road to the Rim. He is now Admiral Craven of the Rim Worlds Navy, married to Jane Pentecost, who was Purser of Delta Orionis and who initiated the young and innocent Grimes into the joys of sex in free fall. Another female character who will bob up again is Fat Susie - from To Keep the Ship - who now owns and operates Susie's Bar and Grill in Port Forlorn, on Lorn. (She had a body sculpture job that made her practically a double of Grimes' one true love, Maggie Lazenby, but since becoming owner/manager of a hash-house has put on weight again.)

"I haven't decided yet whether or not the obnoxious Fenella Pruin is to be given the opportunity to shove her tits into everything.

"A while back, at a WorldCon in Brighton (England) I was on a panel which dealt with The Pleasures and Pitfalls of Series Writing. One pleasure is re-using various characters, even after a long absence from the stage. One pitfall is a certain lack of consistency. For example, in the first Rim Worlds novels, (which I now refer to as Late Period Grimes) my starships had Reaction Drive (rockets) and the Space-Time-twisting Mannschenn Drive. Now, in Middle Period Grimes, they have Inertial Drive, sometimes auxiliary Reaction Drive and - of course - Mannschenn Drive.

"Sonya Verrill, whom Grimes eventually marries, started life as a small, cuddly blonde. Then she became a large blonde and, finally, a redhead. But I was able to explain those changes away.

"Should any Grimes fan take me to task over these discrepancies I just shrug and say that out on the Galactic Rim things are very iffy and if you fart really hard you're liable to blow yourself on to an Alternate Time Track."

The next five stories consist of reminiscences by Grimes from some point during his command Faraway Quest, while the ship was laid up for repairs. All the stories take place before Grimes emigrated to the Rim, but it's impossible to determine with certainty when Grimes did the telling. I've placed them at this point in the chronology, which is about the earliest Grimes could've been telling these tales, but it could easily have been much later.

The following story, "Chance Encounter", was the first of Chandler's Rim Worlds stories to see print, and his first tale involving John Grimes. It could almost serve as a prologue to Catch the Star Winds. Or more accurately, Star Winds should be seen as a sequel to "Chance Encounter". In any event, there are some minor inconsistencies between "Chance Encounter" and later Rim Worlds and John Grimes tales; so minor that retconning the tale into the chronology presents no major difficulties. My advice would be to ignore inconsistencies and enjoy the story.

This might be a good place to take a side excursion into the Rim Worlds Sequence, which consists of tales taking place on the Rim, but not directly involving John Grimes. "Chance Encounter" and Catch the Star Winds are pivotal in both sequences, so you'll find them there as well.

Ten of the Grimes books were repackaged as five double volumes in the late '70's by Ace Books, which had been the original publisher of most of them.

The early 21st century saw the Science Fiction Book Club in the USA start another reissue program that has brought (almost) all Chandler's John Grimes tales back to print in a series of thick hardcover omnibus volumes, published in chronological order for the first time (with the exception of The Broken Cycle, which was published out of sequence in the second volume rather than the first).

I'm very pleased to see SFBC followed my suggestions for the contents of John Grimes: Reserve Commodore, John Grimes: Rim Runner and John Grimes: Rim Commander. The inclusion of previously uncollected Grimes stories in Reserve Commodore and Rim Commander has made those stories available to fans who might not even know of their existence. Unfortunately, SFBC neglected to include "Doggy in the Window" in Rim Commander, which means there is still one John Grimes tale that has never been published in book form.

I got a nice "Thank You" on the copyright pages of Reserve Commodore, Rim Runner and Rim Commander. Thanks for remembering!