FRANK M. ROBINSON has had a long career as a magazine editor, a writer of stories, novels, and screenplays. His first novel "The Power," in the 1950s, was produced for television and later became a film, and his collaboration with Thomas N. Scortia in the 1970s and 80s yielded several bestsellers, including "The Glass Inferno," basis for the film "The Towering Inferno," His last novel was the successful thriller, "Waiting,"