Obituaries

Bestselling fantasy author Terry Pratchett, 66, died March 12, 2015 in his home. Pratchett is best known for his 40-volume Discworld series, which started with The Colour of Magic in 1983. He has sold over 85 million books in 37 languages. According to Larry Finlay, managing director at Transworld Publishers, “Terry passed away in his home, with his cat sleeping on his bed surrounded by his family on 12th March ...Read More

Actor, director, author, and photographer Leonard Nimoy, 83, died February 27, 2015 at home in Bel Air CA of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Nimoy is best known for playing the half-Vulcan science officer Spock in both the TV and film incarnations of Star Trek, beginning in 1966 and making a final appearance as the character in the 2013 film Star Trek Into Darkness. Nimoy wrote two autobiographies that ...Read More

Author Melanie Tem, 65, died February 9, 2015 of cancer.

Tem’s debut novel Prodigal (1991) was the winner of a Bram Stoker Award, and in 1992 she won the Icarus award for most promising newcomer, presented by the British Fantasy Society. Novella “The Man on the Ceiling” (2000), co-written with her husband Steve Rasnic Tem, won a World Fantasy Award, a Bram Stoker Award, and an International Horror Guild Award. ...Read More

SF writer and poet Suzette Haden Elgin, 78, died January 27, 2015.

She began publishing SF with “For the Sake of Grace” in F&SF (1969), part of her Coyote Jones series, which also includes novels The Communipaths (1970), Furthest (1971), At the Seventh Level (1972), Star-Anchored, Star-Angered (1979), and Yonder Comes the Other End of Time (1986). She also wrote the Planet Ozark series, including Twelve Fair Kingdoms (1981), The ...Read More

Editor Alice K. Turner, 75, died January 16, 2014 of antibiotic-resistant pneumonia.

Born 1939, Turner was the legendary fiction editor at Playboy, one of the most prestigious and highest-paying markets for short fiction, from 1980-2000. During her tenure, Turner published work by Terry Bisson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Robert Silverberg, and Dan Simmons, among other notable SF writers. Turner also helped nurture new writers, teaching at both Clarion and Clarion ...Read More

Author Robert Conroy, 76, died December 30, 2014. He was recently diagnosed with cancer of the thymus.

Conroy specialized in alternate history novels, and won a Sidewise Award for 1942 (2009), set during a version of WWII where the Japanese were more successful in their assault on Pearl Harbor. His first novel was 1901 (1995), and other books include Sidewise Award finalists 1862 (2006), 1945 (2007), Red Inferno: 1945 (2010), ...Read More

Author Donald Moffitt, 83, died December 10, 2014 in Monroe ME.

Moffitt was born July 20, 1931 in Boston. He began publishing SF with “The Devil’s Due” in Fantastic (1960). The Jupiter Theft (1977) was his first hard SF novel, and other SF works include the Genesis duology, with The Genesis Quest (1986) and Second Genesis (1986), and the Mechanical Sky series, with Crescent in the Sky (1989) and A ...Read More

Horror Writers Association president and Stephen King scholar Rocky Wood, 55, died December 1, 2014 in Melbourne Australia of complications from ALS.

Rocky Wood was born October 19, 1959 in Wellington, New Zealand. He was one of the foremost experts on Stephen King, writing many articles and books on the author, including The Complete Guide to the Works of Stephen King (2003), Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished (2006), The Stephen King ...Read More

Author P.D. James, 94, died November 27, 2014 at home in Oxford England. James was best known as a celebrated mystery writer, but she wrote one book of SF interest: dystopian The Children of Men (1992), set in a near future where humans have lost the ability to reproduce. It was adapted as film Children of Men in 2006. Her first novel was Cover Her Face (1966), beginning the Adam ...Read More

Fan and artist Stu Shiffman, 60, died November 26, 2014. He suffered a fall in October 2014 that required surgery, and did not regain consciousness after the operation.

Shiffman was a Hugo Award nominee for Best Fan Artist 14 times, appearing on the ballot every year from 1979-86 and 1989-94, and winning the award in 1990. He was born February 12, 1954 in New York. He became active in fandom ...Read More

Author J.F. Gonzalez, 50, died November 10, 2014 of complications from cancer.

Gonzalez wrote or co-wrote over 15 novels, most supernatural horror, beginning with Clickers (1999, with Mark Williams). He frequently collaborated with other horror authors, notably Brian Keene. He published nearly 100 short stories, gathered in several collections, published numerous chapbooks, and edited anthology Tooth and Claw (2002). Gonzalez’s final project was novel Libra Nigrum Scientia Secreta (2014), written ...Read More

Critic and scholar George Slusser, 75, died November 4, 2014. He was professor emeritus of comparative literature at the University of California, Riverside, and curator emeritus of the J. Lloyd Eaton Collection, as well as director of the Eaton Program for Science Fiction and Fantasy Studies.

George Edgar  Slusser was born July 14, 1939 in San Francisco CA. He earned his PhD in comparative literature at Harvard, and was co-founder ...Read More

Children’s writer Zilpha Keatley Snyder, 87, died October 8, 2014 of complications from a stroke in San Francisco. Snyder wrote over 40 books, including many middle-grade novels with fantasy elements. She is best known for Newbery Honor book The Egypt Game (1967), and wrote two other Newbery Honor titles, The Headless Cupid (1971) and The Witches of Worm (1971).

Zilpha Keatley was born May 11, 1927 in Lemoore CA. She ...Read More

Writer Eugie Foster, 42, died September 27, 2014 of respiratory failure, a complication of her cancer, in Atlanta GA.

Foster was best known for her short fiction, including novelette “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast” (2009), winner of a Nebula Award and finalist for Hugo and British SF Association awards. She began publishing fiction with “Second Daughter” in Leading Edge (2002), and went on to publish ...Read More

Author Graham Joyce, 59, died September 9, 2014. He was diagnosed with aggressive lymphoma in 2013 and had been undergoing treatment. Joyce is best known for his acclaimed award-winning novels, which cross the borderlines of fantasy, horror, dark fantasy, and the paranormal.

Graham William Joyce was born October 22, 1954 in Keresley, England, a mining village near Coventry, and grew up there. He received a BEd from Bishop Lonsdale College ...Read More

Agent and editor Kirby McCauley, 72, died August 30, 2014 of renal failure.

McAuley was September 11, 1941 in Minnesota, and attended the University of Minnesota. He became a literary agent in the 1970s, and soon built one of the most successful agencies in the business, representing authors including Stephen King, George R.R. Martin, and Roger Zelazny. His sister Kay McCauley later joined his Pimlico Agency, which still represents many ...Read More

Writer Lawrence Santoro, 71, died July 25, 2014 of cancer.

Santoro’s story “God Screamed and Screamed, Then I Ate Him” (2000) was a Stoker Award nominee, as was his audio drama adaptation of Gene Wolfe’s “The Tree Is My Hat” (2002). Some of his short work is collected in Drink for the Thirst to Come (2011), and other books include novel Just North of Nowhere (2007) and short novel Lord ...Read More

Writer Thomas Berger, 89, died July 13, 2014 at a hospital in Nyack NY.

Berger’s first work of genre interest is “Professor Hyde” (1961), and he is best known for his satirical comic novels, particularly Western Little Big Man (1964; adapted for film 1970) and sequel The Return of Little Big Man (1999). Many of his books play with the tropes of SF/F, including Vital Parts (1970), Regiment of Women ...Read More

Author C.J. Henderson, 62, died July 4, 2014 after a struggle with cancer.

Henderson wrote fantasy and crime novels and comics, and was best known for his Teddy London supernatural crime series. He also wrote the Inspector Legrasse series, the Piers Knight series, standalone novels, several short fiction collections, media tie-ins, and non-fiction.

Christopher John Henderson was born December 26, 1951 and grew up in Western Bridgeville PA. Henderson lived ...Read More

YA and children’s author Walter Dean Myers, 76, died July 1, 2014. Myers wrote mostly mainstream YA, but he wrote some work of genre interest, including ghost story “Things That Go Gleep in the Night” (1993) and YA fantasies Shadow of the Red Moon (1995, illustrated by his son Christopher Meyers) and Dope Sick (2009).

Myers is perhaps best known for Fallen Angels (1988), a YA controversial for its depiction ...Read More

Hachette Australia CEO and Hachette New Zealand chairman Matthew Richell, 41, died July 2, 2014 in a surfing accident off the coast of Tamarama in New South Wales, Australia. He was swept onto rocks, received a head injury, and could not be revived.

Richell began his publishing career as the marketing manager for Bloomsbury UK from 1996-2001, and worked at Pan Macmillan UK and Hachette UK imprint John Murray before ...Read More

Author, editor, and pulp magazine scholar Frank M. Robinson, 87, died June 30, 2014. Robinson lived in San Francisco and had suffered from health problems in recent years.

Frank Malcolm Robinson was born August 9, 1926, in Chicago IL. After graduating from high school in 1943, he worked as a copy boy at the Chicago Herald-American, then as an office boy at Ziff-Davis and Amazing, until he was drafted into ...Read More

Author Daniel Keyes, 86, died June 15, 2014.

Keyes is best known for his Hugo Award winning classic SF story “Flowers for Algernon” (F&SF, 1959), the Nebula Award winning and bestselling 1966 novel expansion, and the film version Charly (1968).

Keyes was born August 9, 1927 in New York. He worked variously as an editor, comics writer, fashion photographer, and teacher before joining the faculty of Ohio University in 1966, ...Read More

Author Jay Lake, 49, died June 1, 2014 of cancer.

Lake began to write seriously in 2000, when he joined the Wordos writing group. First story “The Courtesy of Guests” appeared in September 2001, and he soon became one of the most prolific writers in the field, publishing over 300 stories in his too-short career. Notable stories include Hugo nominee “Into the Gardens of Sweet Night” (2003), Hugo and Nebula ...Read More

Author Jay Lake, 49, died early in the morning on June 1, 2014, after a long and arduous struggle with colon cancer. A full obituary will appear here Monday, and in the July issue of Locus. ...Read More

Author Mary Stewart, 97, died May 9, 2014 at home in Loch Awe Scotland.

Stewart is best known for her Merlin series of Arthurian fantasy novels: Mythopoeic Award winners The Crystal Cave (1970) and The Hollow Hills (1973), and The Last Enchantment (1979). Related Arthurian novels include The Wicked Day (1983) and The Prince and the Pilgrim (1995), and other novels with speculative elements include Touch Not the Cat (1976), ...Read More

Swiss artist H.R. Giger, 74, died May 12, 2014 in a Zurich hospital after being injured in a fall. Giger is best known for his work on the film Alien (1979), particularly his iconic, grotesque aliens; he was part of the team that won an Academy Award for best visual effects. Giger’s style had a huge influence on SF films in following decades. He published numerous art books and contributed ...Read More

Writer and critic William H. Patterson, Jr., 62, died April 22, 2014. Patterson was an expert on the works of Robert A. Heinlein, and was chosen by Heinlein’s widow Virginia Heinlein to write the authorized biography. Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue With His Century, Vol. 1 (1907-1948): Learning Curve appeared in 2011, and was a Hugo Award finalist. Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue With His Century, Vol. 2: The ...Read More

Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, 87, died April 17, 2014 in Mexico City. He was hospitalized in early April for an infection and dehydration.

García Márquez was one of the best-known writers in the world and a leading figure in the field of magical realism. Works of particular genre interest include collections A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings (1955), No One Writes to the Colonel and Other Stories (1968), ...Read More

Writer Lucius Shepard died March 18, 2014 in Portland OR. Shepard had suffered health complications during the last year including a stroke and a spinal infection.

Lucius Taylor Shepard was born on August 21, 1943 in Lynchburg VA and grew up in Florida. He spent years in his teens and twenties traveling, and recounted stories of living and traveling in North and Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, North Africa, and ...Read More

Writer and editor Alan Rodgers, 54, died March 8, 2014 in Anaheim CA.

Alan Paul Rodgers was born August 11, 1959 in Montclair NJ. He began publishing fantasy with Stoker Award winner and World Fantasy Award nominee “The Boy who Came Back from the Dead” (1987). Debut horror novel Blood of the Children (1989) was a Stoker finalist. Other novels include Fire (1990), Night (1991), Pandora (1994), Stoker nominee Bone ...Read More