In his teens he discovered the gaudy American science fiction magazines on sale in local department stores and began collecting them.
He located other SF fans in Hobart and together they produced the first Tasmanian science fiction fanzine, Profan, which had three issues between April and September 1941.
During the war, Tuck trained as a radio technician before serving in the Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers Corps on Horn and Thursday Islands in the Torres Strait.
A list of paperbacks sent to him by Perth fan Roger Dard inspired Tuck to begin compiling a card index to SF, fantasy and weird literature published in various forms.
Acquiring bibliographic data from contacts around the world, Tuck expanded his card index and self-published it as a book titled A Handbook of Science Fiction and Fantasy in January 1954.
He continued to expand his Handbook; the second edition was published in 1959 and received a "Special Hugo" at the World Science Fiction Convention in 1962.