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
Read moreScience 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
Read moreLegendary 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
Read moreWriter 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
Read moreAuthor 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
Read moreSF 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
Read moreArtist 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
Read moreWriter 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
Read moreWriter 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
Read moreWriter Emma Tennant, 79, died January 21, 2017 in a London hospital following a long illness. Tennant was known for her feminist and postmodern fiction, and wrote many works of genre interest, including The Time of the Crack (1973; as The Crack, 1978), The Last of the Country House Murders (1974), Hotel de Dream (1976), The Bad Sister (1978), Wild Nights (1979), Alice Fell (1980), The Search for Treasure Island ...Read More
Read moreBook dealer and conrunner Larry Smith, 70, died January 20, 2017. Laurence C. Smith was born in 1946 and lived in Columbus OH. He co-chaired the Columbus in 1976 Worldcon bid, chaired Marcon for ten years, served as vice-chair of Chicon IV in 1982, and co-chaired the 2010 World Fantasy Convention. He acquired Dick Spelman’s book business in the early ’90s and became a regular fixture in the convention bookselling ...Read More
Read moreLiterary critic Robert Scholes, 87, died December 9, 2016 in Rhode Island. He wrote numerous works of literary theory, including several of SF interest: The Fabulators (1967), Structural Fabulation: An Essay on Fiction of the Future (1975), Science Fiction: History — Science — Vision (1977, with Eric S. Rabkin), and Fabulation and Metafiction (1979). He co-edited essay anthologies Bridges to Fantasy (1982) and Co-Ordinates: Placing Science Fiction and Fantasy (1983) ...Read More
Read moreWriter William Peter Blatty, 89, died of cancer on January 12, 2017 in New York. Blatty is best known for horror classic The Exorcist (1971). He wrote the screenplay for the Academy Award-winning film adaptation (1973), as well as the sequel The Exorcist III (1990), which he also directed. Other books of genre interest include Legion (1983, the basis for The Exorcist III) and Demons Five, Exorcists Nothing: A Fable ...Read More
Read moreUK editor and fan Peter Weston, 73, died January 5, 2017, about three years after being diagnosed with cancer.
Born October 19, 1943 in Birmingham England, Weston published influential fanzine Zenith (later renamed Speculation) from 1963-73, during which time it was nominated for four Hugo Awards. His fanzine Prolapse published two issues, went on hiatus for 23 years, and relaunched in 2006. It was renamed Relapse in 2009 and ran ...Read More
Read moreLiterary agent Linn Prentis, 72, died December 24, 2016.
Elise Linn Prentis was born in 1944 and spent 20 years as a literary agent, first at the Virginia Kidd Agency and later at her own Linn Prentis Agency. In 2011 she moved from New York City to Washington state, just outside Seattle, though she retained offices in New York run by assistant Trodayne Northern. During her career she represented authors ...Read More
Read moreAuthor Richard Adams, 96, died December 24, 2016. Adams is best known for his classic animal fantasy Watership Down (1972), about the secret (and magical) lives of rabbits. His other titles of genre interest include Shardik (1975), The Plague Dogs (1978), and collection Tales from Watership Down (1996).
Richard George Adams was born May 9, 1920 in Newbury, Berkshire, England. He studed at Worcester College, Oxford, graduating with a BA ...Read More
Read moreAuthor Sheri S. Tepper, 87, died October 22, 2016. Tepper was a prolific author of SF, best known for her feminist and ecological themes, with major titles including The Gate to Women’s Country (1988) and Grass (1989).
She was born Shirley Stewart Douglas on July 16, 1929 near Littleton CO. She married for the first time at 20 and had two children, but divorced in her late twenties, and spent ...Read More
Read moreAuthor and editor Ed Gorman, 74, died October 14, 2016. He was diagnosed with incurable cancer in 2002. Gorman was best known as a crime and horror writer and anthologist, and also wrote SF.
He published dozens of books, beginning with novel Rough Cut (1984). Most of his works of genre interest were published pseudonymously. As Daniel Ransom he wrote many horror and SF titles, including Daddy’s Little Girl (1985), ...Read More
Read moreAuthor, editor, publisher, and fan Robert E. Weinberg, 70, died September 25, 2016 in Oak Forest IL. Weinberg was an expert on pulp magazines, and devoted much of his life to promoting and reprinting material from the pulps. He was also a prolific anthologist, editing or co-editing more than 100 volumes.
Robert Edward Weinberg was born August 29, 1946 in New Jersey. His first publications of genre interest were bibliographical ...Read More
Read moreAuthor W.P. Kinsella, 81, died September 16, 2016 in Hope, British Columbia, Canada, reportedly of assisted suicide. Kinsella is best known for his debut novel, baseball fantasy Shoeless Joe (1982), adapted as film Field of Dreams (1989). Other works of genre interest include The Iowa Baseball Confederacy (1986), If Wishes Were Horses (1996), and Butterfly Winter (2011), and collections The Alligator Report (1985), Red Wolf, Red Wolf (1987), The Further ...Read More
Read moreAuthor, illustrator, and fan David A. Kyle, 97, died September 18, 2016 of complications from an endoscopy. Kyle was a member of First Fandom, active in SF since 1933, and a founding member of the Futurians. He chaired NYCon II, the 14th Worldcon in 1956, and was fan guest of honor ConStellation, the 41st Worldcon, in 1983. Kyle published countless essays and letters in fanzines, and illustrated covers and interiors ...Read More
Read moreWriter Katherine Dunn, 70, died May 11, 2016 in Portland OR of complications from lung cancer.
Dunn is best known for Geek Love (1989), her influential literary horror novel about a family of circus sideshow performers (with touches of the paranormal). The novel was a bestseller and is an enduring cult classic, and was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Bram Stoker Award. Earlier novels Attic ...Read More
Read moreSF writer and philosopher Justin Leiber, 77, died March 22, 2016 in Tallahassee FL. He had prostate cancer. The son of writer Fritz Leiber, Justin Leiber’s debut SF novel was Beyond Rejection (1980), beginning the Beyond sequence, which continued with Beyond Humanity (1987) and Beyond Gravity (1988). He also wrote fantasy novels The Sword and the Eye (1985) and The Sword and the Tower (1986).
Justin Fritz Leiber was born ...Read More
Read moreWriter Bud Webster, 63, died February 13, 2015.
Clarence Howard Webster was born July 27, 1952 in Roanoke VA. Webster was the author of many poems and short stories, notably the Bubba Pritchert series, but was best known as a SF scholar and historian. His books included Anthopology 101: Reflections, Inspections and Dissections of SF Anthologies (2010), The Joy of Booking (2011), and Past Masters & Other Bookish Natterings (2013). ...Read More
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Editor David G. Hartwell, 74, died January 20, 2016. He suffered head trauma in a fall, was hospitalized, and did not recover from a massive brain bleed. Hartwell was one of the genre’s most accomplished editors, and was equally known for his encyclopedic knowledge of the field and his memorable personal style.
David Geddes Hartwell was born July 10, 1941 in Salem MA. He attended Williams College, graduating with ...Read More
Pioneering musician David Bowie, 69, died January 10, 2016. For the previous 18 months he was being treated for cancer. Bowie was one of the most well-known and successful pop stars of the 1970s and beyond, and was both famously influenced by science fiction and an influence on SF writers himself.
Bowie was born David Robert Jones on January 8, 1947 in London. His earliest success was 1969 single “Space ...Read More
Read moreAuthor A.R. Morlan, 58, was found dead at home in Ladysmith WI on January 6, 2016 in an apparent suicide.
Morlan began publishing with a quiz in Twilight Zone Magazine (1983). Her first story was “Four Days Before the Snow” (1985), beginning her Ewerton series of horror stories set in an imaginary small town in Wisconsin, which also includes novels The Amulet (1991) and Dark Journey (1991). Her short fiction ...Read More
Read moreWriter George Clayton Johnson, 86, died December 25, 2015. Johnson is best known in the genre for co-writing Logan’s Run (1967) with William F. Nolan, and for his work as a screenwriter. He wrote several episodes of The Twilight Zone as well as the debut episode of Star Trek, “The Man Trap” (1966).
Johnson was born July 10, 1929 in Cheyenne WY. He served the Army before enrolling at the ...Read More
Read moreAuthor Peter Dickinson, 88, died December 16, 2015 in Winchester, Hampshire on his birthday.
Peter Malcolm de Brissac Dickinson was born December 16, 1927 in Livingstone, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). He is best known for his numerous works for children and young adults, and is one of only seven authors to win two Carnegie Medals (he was the first); no one has three. His debut YA The Weathermonger (1968) began ...Read More
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Author David Rain, 54, who wrote SF as Tom Arden, died December 15, 2015 of cancer.
Arden is best known for the five-book Orokon epic fantasy series, beginning with The Harlequin’s Dance (1997). He also wrote standalone novels Shadow Black (2002) and The Translation of Bastian Test (2005), as well as Doctor Who novella Nightdreamers (2002), and numerous stories, reviews, and critical articles. As David Rains he published The ...Read More
Read moreAuthor T.M. Wright, 68, died October 31, 2015 in Corning NY.
Terrance Michael Wright was born September 9, 1947 in Syracuse NY. His first book was non-fiction, The Intelligent Man’s Guide to Flying Saucers (1968). Debut novel Strange Seed (1978) was followed by sequels Nursery Tale (1982), The Children of the Island (1983), The People of the Dark (1985), and Erthmun (1995; as Laughing Man, 2003). A Manhattan Ghost Story ...Read More
Read moreDirector and writer WES CRAVEN, 76, died August 30, 2015 of brain cancer at home in Los Angeles.
Though best known for the horror films he wrote and directed, he published one novel, SF thriller Fountain Society (1999), about a scientist who has his brain transplanted into a cloned body. Craven’s directorial debut was The Last House on the Left (1972), and he wrote or directed other horror films including ...Read More
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