George Zebrowski (1945-2024)
Author George Zebrowski, 78, died December 20, 2024.
Jerzy Tadeus Zebrowski (AKA George Thaddeus Zebrowski) was born December 28, 1945 in Villach, Austria. He moved to the US in 1951, and attended an early Clarion Writers’ Workshop in 1968.
Zebrowski’s first publications were collaborations with Jack Dann in 1970 (“Traps” and “Dark, Dark, the Dead Star”), and his first solo story was “The Water Sculptor of Station 233” (1970). He published scores of stories, with many collected in The Monadic Universe (1977); Swift Thoughts (2002); In the Distance, and Ahead in Time (2002); Black Pockets and Other Dark Thoughts (2006); Decimated: Ten Science Fiction Stories (2012, with Jack Dann); and Personas (2023).
Debut novel The Omega Point (1972) was followed by sequel Ashes and Stars (1977), with both revised and included alongside a new book as The Omega Point Trilogy (1983). The Star Web (1975) was later greately expanded as Stranger Suns (1991). Macrolife (1979) was followed by related book Cave of Stars (1999). The Bernal One sequence includes Sunspacer (1984), The Stars Will Speak (1985), and The Sunspacers Trilogy (1996), gathering the prior two volumes and another long piece. Other books include The Killing Star (1995, with Charles R. Pellegrino); Brute Orbits (1998), winner of a John W. Campbell Memorial Award; and Empties (2009).
He was also a prolific anthologist, with books including include Tomorrow Today (1975), Faster than Light (1976, with Jack Dann, and Human-Machines (1975, with Thomas N. Scortia), Creations: The Quest for Origins in Story and Science (1983, with Isaac Asimov & Martin H. Greenberg), Skylife: Space Habitats in Story and Science (2000, with Gregory Benford), Synergy SF: New Science Fiction (2004), and Sentinels: In Honor of Arthur C. Clarke (2010, with Benford). Beginning in 1987 he edited four volumes of the Synergy series of original anthologies. He edited the 20th, 21st, and 22nd Nebula Awards Anthologies (1985-88). He also edited collection The Best of Thomas N. Scortia (1981). He edited The SFWA Bulletin from 1970 to winter 1975, and from 1983 to 1991 with Pamela Sargent.
Zebrowski also wrote several Star Trek tie-ins with Sargent, starting with A Fury Scorned (1996). His essays on SF in Eastern Europe are collected in Beneath the Red Star: Studies on International Science Fiction (1991). He also published interview collection Talks with the Masters (2018). He was the subject of critical volume The Work of George Zebrowski by Jeffrey M. Elliot & Robert Reginald (1996).
He is survived by writer Pamela Sargent, his partner of 60 years.
For more, see his entry in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
