The Doomsday Planet

Harl Vincent (1893 - 1968) was the publication name of Harold Vincent Schoepflin, an American mechanical engineer and science fiction author. He was published regularly in science fiction pulp magazines. Vincent was born in Buffalo, New York in 1893. He attended a technical high school, then enrolled in Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Vincent left RPI without completing his freshman year, in order to marry. He married Ruth Hoff and they had two children, a son and a daughter. Vincent worked as a mechanical engineer for Westinghouse, specializing in the installation and testing of large electrical apparatus. Later he was employed as a sales engineer, becoming the manager of a local steam division. Vincent's writing career began after he began reading Hugo Gernsback's pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories. Vincent's first published story, The Golden Girl of Munan, appeared in the June 1928 issue of the magazine. During the next fourteen years, Vincent published more than seventy science fiction stories. Although most of his work appeared in the early science fiction magazines, he published twice in the general fiction pulp magazine Argosy. Although he ceased publishing during the early 1940s, Vincent remained involved with science fiction. After relocating to Los Angeles, Vincent joined the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society and the Count Dracula Society, as well as attending local science fiction conventions. Vincent resumed writing late in life, publishing the novel The Doomsday Planet in 1966 and the story Invader in the September 1967 issue of If.