Finney, Walter Braden

▪ 1996

      ("JACK"), U.S. writer (b. 1911, Milwaukee, Wis.—d. Nov. 14, 1995, Greenbrae, Calif.), was the author of 10 novels as well as short stories and plays, but his fame rested on 2 novels that were especially well known. The Body Snatchers (1955; republished as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1961), about humans being replicated by alien seed pods, was filmed three times, and Time and Again (1970), concerning an advertising artist who is recruited for a government project involving time travel, became a cult classic. Finney attended Knox College, Galesburg, Ill., and then worked in advertising in New York City. He began writing short stories, and many were published in such magazines as Collier's, The Saturday Evening Post, and McCall's. His first, "The Widow's Walk" (1946), won a special prize in an Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine contest. Finney's first novel, 5 Against the House (1954), as well as Assault on a Queen (1959) and Good Neighbor Sam (1963) were adapted for the cinema. Another notable book was The Woodrow Wilson Dime (1968), which created a parallel world in which much is familiar yet striking differences exist. In 1995 From Time to Time, Finney's long-awaited sequel to Time and Again, was published.

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