Robert E. Weinberg (1946-2016)

Author, editor, publisher, and fan Robert E. Weinberg, 70, died September 25, 2016 in Oak Forest IL. Weinberg was an expert on pulp magazines, and devoted much of his life to promoting and reprinting material from the pulps. He was also a prolific anthologist, editing or co-editing more than 100 volumes.

Robert Edward Weinberg was born August 29, 1946 in New Jersey. His first publications of genre interest were bibliographical indexes of SF magazines, and he compiled and published many books on the field and its authors during his career, most notably in Hugo Award finalist and World Fantasy Award winner A Biographical Dictionary of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists (1988). He also produced fanzines, most notably Pulp (1970-81).

In 1976 he bought Weird Tales, and remained its owner while leasing out the title to various editors and publishers over the years. His Robert Weinberg Publications operated from 1974 to 1981, and was devoted to reprinting pulp SF and fantasy, including the Pulp Classics series, the Lost Fantasies series, and the Weird Menace Classics anthology series. In the ’80s he moved into bookselling via mail-order, and continued that until 1997.

Later in life he collaborated with Martin H. Greenberg on many anthologies, including Lovecraft’s Legacy (1990) and Love Kills (1997). He often collaborated on anthologies with Greenberg & Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, starting with Weird Tales: 32 Unearthed Terrors (1988). They did a dozen books in the 100 anthology series, beginning with 100 Ghastly Little Ghost Stories (1993) and ending with 100 Hilarious Little Howlers (1999). Their anthology Horrors! 365 Scary Stories (1998) won a Stoker Award. On his own Weinberg edited The Eighth Green Man & Other Strange Folk (1989).

He began publishing fiction of genre interest with “Destroyer” in If (1969). Debut novel The Devil’s Auction (1988) began the Alex Warner series, which continued with The Armageddon Box (1991). He also wrote the Kaufman and Lane series, the Today’s Sorcery series, the Masquerade of the Red Death series, and the Horizon War series . The Termination Node (1999, with Lois H. Gresh) is a technothriller, and his last novel was The Web of Arachnos (2005). He wrote for comics as well, working with Marvel comics in the early 2000s. He won a Stoker Award for his comic Nightside (2003).

Weinberg won the Moskowitz Archive Award from the First Fandom Hall of Fame in 2001, and a Bram Stoker Award for life achievement in 2008. The 2012 Worldcon gave him a Special Committee Award for “his years of service and devotion given to advancing the field of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.”