Obituaries

Scientist and author Stephen Hawking, 76, died March 14, 2018 at home in Cambridge, England. Hawking was a brilliant physicist, whose many accomplishments include the discovery of “Hawking radiation,” the energy that emerges from black holes — a discovery that marked a turning point in modern physics. Hawking was also a popularizer of science, famous for bestselling non-fiction book A Brief History of Time (1988). He also co-wrote five middle-grade ...Read More

Writer Mary Rosenblum, 65, died March 11, 2018 when the small plane she was piloting crashed near La Center WA.

Mary Freeman was born June 27, 1952 in Levittown NY. She attended Reed College, graduating with a biology degree, and worked as a medical researcher. She began publishing SF with “For a Price” (1990), and notable stories include Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award finalist “One Good Juror” (1997, with James Sarafin), ...Read More

Author Kate Wilhelm, 89, died March 8, 2018 in Eugene OR. Wilhelm was an influential SF writer and writing teacher with a career that spanned six decades. She wrote more than 40 books of SF and mystery, helped run the Milford Science Fiction Writers’ Conference, and was instrumental in the creation of the Clarion Workshop.

Her first genre story was “The Pint-Sized Genie” (1956). Over a dozen of her stories ...Read More

Author, editor, critic, and historian Peter Nicholls, 78, died March 6, 2018 in Melbourne, Australia. Nicholls created (and edited, as long as his health would allow) The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, arguably the single most essential reference work in the field of SF.

Nicholls began working on The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction in the mid-’70s. He was general editor of the first version, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: An ...Read More

Writer Victor Milán, 63, died February 13, 2018 in Albuquerque NM after years of declining health due to cancer.

His first SF story was “Soldatenmangel” (1981), and his first novels were in the War of Powers series in collaboration with Robert E. Vardeman. His solo debut, The Cybernetic Samurai (1985) won a Prometheus Award, and was followed by Prometheus Award-nominated sequel The Cybernetic Shogun (1990). He collaborated on historical fantasy ...Read More

Dallas Mayr, 71, who wrote horror as Jack Ketchum, died January 24, 2018 in New York. He had cancer. Ketchum was named a World Horror Grand Master in 2011, and won a Bram Stoker Award for life achievement in 2015.

Dallas William Mayr was born November 10, 1946 in Livingston NJ. He attended Emerson College in Boston, earning a BA in English, and taught high school for two years. He ...Read More

Author Julian May, 86, died October 17, 2017.

May’s first SF story was “Dune Roller” in Astounding (12/51), later filmed as The Cremators (1972). During the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s she mostly moved away from science fiction, writing in numerous genres and under many pseudonyms, including Bob Cunningham, Lee N. Falconer, John Feilen, Matthew G. Grant, Jean Wright Thorne, Ian Thorne, and George Zanderbergen. In all she wrote nearly 300 ...Read More

Author and scientist Yoji Kondo, who wrote SF as Eric Kotani, 84, died October 9, 2017.

His Island Worlds series (written with John Maddox Roberts) includes Act of God (1985) The Island Worlds (1987), and Between the Stars (1988). He wrote standalones Delta Pavonis (1990) and Legacy of Prometheus (2000) with Maddox, and Supernova (1991) with Roger MacBride Allen. With Dean Wesley Smith he wrote Star Trek Voyager: Death of ...Read More

Writer ElizaBeth Gilligan, 55, died October 9, 2017 of cancer. Gilligan’s first story was “Evolution” (1990), and she published several stories in anthologies and magazines. She was best known for the Silken Magic trilogy: Magic’s Silken Snare (2003), The Silken Shroud (2004), and Sovereign Silk (2017). She edited anthology Alterna-Teas (2016), wrote a column for Midnight Zoo in the 1990s, and served as secretary of SFWA from 2002 to 2003. ...Read More

Publisher Hugh Hefner, 91, died September 27, 2018 at home in the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles. Hefner created Playboy magazine in 1953, and spun it into the Playboy Enterprises empire including clubs, TV, and book and magazine publishing. A revolutionary men’s magazine for its time, Playboy from the start featured not only nude females, but also articles and stories by notable authors, among them some of the best in ...Read More

Writer Harvey Jacobs, 87, died September 23, 2017 of a sudden bacterial infection shortly after being diagnosed with brain cancer.

Harvey Jay Jacobs was born January 7, 1930 in New York. He often wrote movingly of the Jewish experience, sometimes with a magical realist bent, and used SF elements for satirical purposes as well. His first work of genre interest was “A Wind Age” in Tomorrow (1951), and other notable ...Read More

SF writer Jerry Pournelle, 84, died September 8, 2017, at his home in Studio City CA after a sudden illness.

Jerry Eugene Pournelle was born August 7, 1933 in Shreveport LA. He served in the US Army from 1950-52, and attended the University of Iowa from 1953-54. He earned his bachelor’s at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1955, where he also took a master’s in statistics and systems ...Read More

SF Grand Master Brian Aldiss died August 19, 2017 at home in Oxford, England shortly after celebrating his 92nd birthday with friends and family. Aldiss was a towering figure in the genre. Critic John Clute called him “one of the SF field’s two or three most prolific authors of substance, and perhaps its most exploratory.” Aldiss’s influence as an editor was also profound, and his insights as a critic and ...Read More

Science fiction writer Jeff Carlson, 47, died July 17, 2017 of an agressive lung cancer in Walnut Creek CA. Carlson’s published books include Plague Year (2007), Philip K. Dick Award finalist Plague War (2008), and Plague Zone (2009), and the Frozen Sky series. He also published short stories in several publications including Asimov’s, Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, and Strange Horizons and was a Writers of the Future winner.

Jeffrey ...Read More

Legendary filmmaker George A. Romero, 77, died July 16, 2017 of lung cancer in Toronto, Canada. Romero is best known for groundbreaking zombie movie Night of the Living Dead (1968) and sequels Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1995), Land of the Dead (2005), Diary of the Dead (2007), and Survival of the Dead (2009). Romero’s vision of the living dead influenced generations of SF, fantasy, and ...Read More

Writer Marie Jakober, 75, died March 26, 2017 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Jakober began publishing with SF novel The Mind Gods (1976), and other works of genre interest include historical fantasies The Black Chalice (2000), Even the Stones (2004), and The Demon Left Behind (2011). She was also a respected and award-winning author of historical fiction, and published nine books in all.

Jakober was born August 27, 1941 in northern ...Read More

Author and editor Grania Davis, 73, died April 28, 2017 after falling unconscious at a movie theater.

Davis wrote The Rainbow Annals (1980), The Great Perpendicular Path (1980), and Moonbird (1986). She was married to author Avram Davidson from 1962 to 1964 and collaborated with him on several works including The Boss in the Wall (1998), which was nominated for the Nebula and Locus Awards, and Marco Polo and the ...Read More

SF scholar Mike Levy, 66, died April 3, 2017 of cancer after a brief period in hospice care.

Levy was a noted expert on children’s, YA, and SF/F literature. He was an editor for Extrapolation starting in 2006 and reviewed extensively, including for Publishers Weekly, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and other publications. He was an active member of the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts ...Read More

Artist Bernie Wrightson, 68, died March 18, 2017 in Austin TX of brain cancer. Wrightson is best known for his comics, including the creation of DC Comics character Swamp Thing (1971, with writer Len Wein), and for his horror illustrations.

Bernard Albert Wrightson was born October 27, 1948 in Dundalk MD. He started work as a newspaper illustrator in 1966, and in 1968 began freelancing for DC Comics. His first ...Read More

Writer Susan Casper died in her sleep on February 24, 2017 after a series of health complications. In announcing her death on Facebook, husband Gardner Dozois said, “She was an extremely tough woman, and fought through an unbelievable amount of stuff in the last couple of years, but this last illness was just too much for her fading strength to overcome.”

Casper co-edited Ripper! (Tor) with Dozois in 1988, but ...Read More

Writer Edward Bryant, 71, died in his sleep after a long illness. He was found February 10, 2017 at home in Colorado.

Bryant was an accomplished SF writer, mostly of short stories. He began publishing SF work with “They Come Only in Dreams” and “Sending the Very Best”, both in January 1970. For the next two decades he was a frequent contributor to magazines and anthologies, and though his fictional ...Read More