William Mayne (1928-2010)

Children’s author William Mayne, 82, died March 23, 2010 in Thornton Rust, North Yorkshire.

Born March 16, 1928 in Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he wrote over a hundred books, some of which included SF and fantasy elements, notably the Earthfasts sequence – Earthfasts (1966), Cradlefasts (1999), and Candlefasts (2002) – and A Game of the Dark (1971), The Jersey Shore (1971), The Member for the Marsh (1956), and for younger readers Skiffy (1972) and sequel Skiffy and the Twin Planets (1982). He won a Carnegie medal in 1957 for A Grass Rope and a Guardian book award in 1983 for Low Tide.

Mayne’s reputation was ruined in 2004 after he pled guilty to multiple counts of indecent assault on children from 1960-73. He was jailed for over two years, forbidden to work with children, and added to the sex offenders’ registry for life.

The Encyclopedia of SF has more details.

See the May issue of Locus for a complete obituary.