David Masson, who has died aged 91, will be most remembered for his collection of brilliant and influential science-fiction short stories, The Caltraps of Time (1968). They had been first published individually in the British SF magazine New Worlds, which during the 1960s had a radical policy of rethinking science fiction’s standard generic material. This was the period of the SF “new wave”, when many new and youthful writers were breaking into print. Masson was certainly new to SF readers, but when his first story appeared he was nearly 50.
He was born in Edinburgh, the son of a chemistry professor and grandson of an English professor at Edinburgh University. From Oundle school, Northamptonshire, he went to Merton College, Oxford, where he read English (1934-38). He was then appointed an assistant librarian at Leeds University, and during the second world war served with the Royal Army Medical Corps, chiefly in north Africa and Italy.
Extract taken from;
Obituary: David Masson
The Guardian, Friday March 9, 2007