Anthony R. Lewis (1941-2024)
Author, editor, fan, bibliographer, and convention organizer Anthony R. Lewis, 84, died February 12, 2025. Lewis was a founder of the New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA) and a Worldcon chair.
Anthony Richard Lewis was born February 8, 1941, and earned his PhD in nuclear physics at MIT, where he was a member of the MIT Science Fiction Society, and eventually a mainstay of Boston-area fandom. He married fellow fan Susan Hereford (who became better known as Suford Lewis) in 1968.
He co-founded NESFA and became the organization’s first president in 1967. He chaired Noreascon, the 1970 Worldcon, and helped run programming and served on committees for Noreascons two, three, and four. He also chaired or co-chaired Boskone multiple times, worked on numerous other conventions and bid committees, and was a charter member of the Science Fiction Research Association. His other fannish activities include fanzines Stroon and Along Alpha Ralpha Boulevard.
The first issue of Locus (which began life as a bidzine for the Boston Worldcon) was printed in 1968 on Tony Lewis’s mimeograph machine in Suford Lewis’s home.
He edited The Best of Astounding (1978) and wrote Hugo Award nominee Concordance to Cordwainer Smith (1984), An Annotated Bibliography of Recursive Science Fiction (1990), and Hugo Award finalist Space Travel: A Writer’s Guide to the Science of Interplanetary and Interstellar Travel (1997, with Ben Bova). He also helped compile and edit many bibliographic indices for NESFA. He published nearly 20 short stories, starting with “Request for Proposal” in Analog (1972), and most recently “Alien Ground” (2005). He also wrote the “upcoming conventions” calendar listing for Analog for three decades.
Lewis is credited with coining the terms “recursive SF” and “NASFiC.” The Lewises were fan Guests of Honor at the 2024 NASFiC in Buffalo, among other conventions. He won a Skylark Award in 2021, presented by NESFA for contributions to SF.
Lewis is survived by his wife and their daughter Alice.
For more, see his entry in Fancyclopedia 3 and Mike Glyer’s extensive tribute at File 770.
