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Obits

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2009 1:55 pm
by Omphalos
Seems like a lot of the old guard of SF from the thirties through the fifties are starting to pass away. I'd like to keep track of who dies, thus this thread.

First on the list is Charles Brown, who died yesterday. Brown was the editor for years of Locus. Here is a link to an announcement on the Locus site.

The topic is stickied as I have a feeling we will be adding to it quite a bit in the upcoming months and years.

Re: Obits

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2009 3:24 pm
by Eyes High
Will this be just for those who pass away from here on out or may we mention those who have 'recently' died?

Delete this if you wish it just to be about those who pass away in the future. But if you don't mind I would like to mention three that we spoke of over at Worm's during this last year:

Philip José Farmer passes

Michael Crichton dies

Trek's First Lady Passes Away

Please delete anything (even my whole post if need be) that doesn't fit here.

Re: Obits

Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2009 9:20 pm
by Omphalos
Thanks, Eyes. I was actually gonna go and post about those who have died recently.

Re: Obits

Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2009 10:44 am
by A Thing of Eternity
Not sure if he's old enough to count, but of course Arthur C. Clarke.

Re: Obits

Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2009 10:53 am
by Omphalos
Of course. You know, its been a long time since Clarke wrote anything that I wanted to read. But when he was in his prime I thought he was wonderful. A few months ago I started a book that collects all of his short fiction. I got sidelined somewhere along the way, but I was reminded when i saw your post to go back to it.

He and Pohl put out a book called The Last Theorem. I was thinking I should get that one and read it too. Anyone here read it?

Re: Obits

Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2009 12:44 pm
by Liege-Killer
J.G. Ballard was pretty recent -- a couple months ago?

And there was Disch last year.

Re: Obits

Posted: Wed Dec 16, 2009 12:07 pm
by Omphalos

Re: Obits

Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 3:21 pm
by Omphalos
The IROSF is dying. I know that SR and I read that once in a while. Here is the Locus article.

Re: Obits

Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2010 4:15 pm
by Omphalos
Kage Baker apparently died this morning of cancer. I did not even know that she was ill.

http://greenmanreview.com/

Re: Obits

Posted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 12:52 pm
by Omphalos
Just heard that William Tenn has died at 89. This posting is from the SFRA listserve, taken from the NYT and was not produced by me.



*William Tenn, Science Fiction Author, Is Dead at 89 *

By GERALD JONAS

Published: February 13, 2010. New York Times, Feb. 14, 2010, page A24 of the
New York edition.

William Tenn, who wrote satirical science fiction at a time when few writers
in the genre displayed a sense of humor, died at his home in Pittsburgh on
Feb. 7. He was 89.

His death was announced by his niece the pediatrician Perri Klass, a
contributor to The New York Times.

Mr. Klass, whose real name was Philip Klass, brought biting wit, restless
intelligence and a supple prose style to classic science-fiction themes like
time travel and alien-human interactions. A contemporary of Robert A.
Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C.
Clarke<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference ... ne=nyt-per>,
he helped create modern science fiction in the 1940s and ’50s, when the
genre’s dominant form was the short story, published in monthly magazines
known as pulps, for the poor quality of their paper.

As a Swiftian humorist in a field better known for futuristic speculation,
rousing space adventures and grim cautionary tales, he was admired but never
quite embraced by his contemporaries. He was repeatedly passed over for the
major awards granted by the genre’s fans and writers — an omission somewhat
amended when he was named guest of honor at the 2004 World Science Fiction
Convention, nearly four decades after he had all but abandoned writing
fiction to teach at Pennsylvania State
University<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference ... ne=nyt-org>
.

Philip Klass was born in London on May 9, 1920, and immigrated with his
parents to New York as a baby. Raised in Brooklyn, he served in the Army
during World War II as a combat engineer; after his discharge he began
selling stories to magazines like Astounding Science Fiction. Pen names were
common among magazine writers of the time; Mr. Tenn later said he could not
remember why he chose William Tenn for his science fiction, but once he had
gained a reputation under that name, editors would not let him publish under
his own.

Perhaps his quintessential short story is “Brooklyn Project” (1948), which
in under 10 pages describes a top-secret government experiment in time
travel that goes eerily awry. He wrote it as a political satire, aimed at
anti-Communist witch hunts like those of the House Un-American Activities
Committee. Its depiction of a docile press corps bullied into submission by
the government might have been written in the first decade of the 21st
century. But its real target is the age-old human failing of hubris.

In the plot, a government spokesman repeatedly assures reporters that travel
into the past cannot possibly have any effect on the present — even as the
spokesman and all the reporters morph into “slime-washed” and “bloated
purpled bodies” that have evolved along the new timeline created by the
experiment. Mr. Tenn gives the self-satisfied spokesman the last word.
“ ‘See,’ cried the thing that had been the acting secretary to the executive
assistant on press relations,” the story concludes. “He extended 15 purple
blobs triumphantly: ‘Nothing has changed!’ ”

Mr. Tenn had a lifelong lover’s quarrel with science fiction. In a 1975
interview, he described it as a “peculiarly modern” form of literature,
“fundamentally derived from the industrial and scientific revolutions.” But
he deplored “the idiocies and the bad writing in it, the cliquishness, the
cultishness,” which he said “don’t really belong in an adult form.”

His disaffection with the field led him to accept a one-year appointment to
teach at Penn State in 1966, despite having no college degree. He remained
on the faculty for 23 years, offering popular courses in writing and on
science fiction as literature.

Beginning in 2001, Nesfa Press, the publishing arm of the New England
Science Fiction Association, reprinted his complete works in three volumes.
His stories have been translated into French, German, Russian, Japanese and
other languages.

He is survived by his wife, Fruma Klass, a writer whom he married in 1957; a
daughter, Adina Klass Lamana; and a sister, Frances Goldman-Levy.

He wrote little fiction after becoming a teacher, a major exception being
“On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi,” published in 1974 in a Jewish-themed
anthology called “Wandering Stars,” which tackles the question of whether a
Hebrew-speaking alien that looks like a “wrinkled and twisted” brown pillow
with short gray tentacles can be considered a Jew.
As for his own identity, he declared in an interview in 1975: “I’m a mystic.
A very rational Jewish orthodox
atheist<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference ... ier>mystic.”

Re: Obits

Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 6:04 pm
by Omphalos
Corey Haim, Dead at 38

http://io9.com/5490319/lost-boy-corey-haim-dead-at-38

Surprised? Not me. I saw an episode or two of that Coreys show. That poor guy was a tweaker.

Re: Obits

Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 6:58 am
by inhuien
Omphalos wrote:That poor guy was a tweaker.
As in speedfreak?

Re: Obits

Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 12:08 pm
by Omphalos
inhuien wrote:
Omphalos wrote:That poor guy was a tweaker.
As in speedfreak?
Yea. The kind of guy who just shakes constantly in front of you, and can't keep his mind on track. We call'em tweakers.

Re: Obits

Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 1:15 pm
by inhuien
Ah, he ODed. Ach well, it's not like he'll be the last.

Re: Obits

Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 5:22 pm
by Omphalos
On the local news here last night the LA DA said that he is going to have an autopsy performed so that they can use this guy's death in a case against a ring of theives who had stolen perscription pads from doctors. So look for someone to be "blamed" for Corey Haim's death other than Corey Haim.

:roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:

Re: Obits

Posted: Sun Mar 14, 2010 1:08 am
by A Thing of Eternity
Blame can be spread. Someone kills themselves with drugs, they're to blame (exceptions occur obviously), but the person handing them the "weapon" to do so shares the blame.

Re: Obits

Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2010 11:13 pm
by Omphalos
Wiki notes that Everett Bleiler died a few days ago:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everett_Bleiler

He was one of the early ones in the effort to bring a scholarly, analytical approach to SF.

Re: Obits

Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 9:47 am
by Freakzilla

Re: Obits

Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 6:02 pm
by Omphalos
Man, was it really 2008 that he died? Doesn't seem like it happened that long ago to me.

Re: Obits

Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 6:52 pm
by Freakzilla
Sorry if that was too long ago but I didn't see him on here and he's written some classics.

Re: Obits

Posted: Wed Jun 16, 2010 7:45 pm
by Omphalos
That's OK, Freak. I think I heard about that when it happened, and it really seems to me like that was just a few months ago. I just had one of those weird "time flies" moments.

Re: Obits

Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 12:07 pm
by Omphalos
EC Tubb has gone to his great reward:

http://www.sfwa.org/2010/09/in-memoriam ... -e-c-tubb/

Ive only read a few things by this author. One I remember liking a great deal (though I cannot remember the title). The rest were fair to midlin' as I recall.

Re: Obits

Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2011 11:04 am
by Omphalos
Joanna Russ has died:

http://www.locusmag.com/News/2011/04/jo ... um=twitter

She was at the center of SF's abrup turn towards feminism in he 70's.

Re: Obits

Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2011 5:37 pm
by Omphalos
Martin H. Greenberg has passed:

http://www.locusmag.com/News/2011/06/martin-greenberg/

There is probably nobody here who has not at leat seen a Greenberg SF anthology. He did over 2000 of them over his lifetime.

Re: Obits

Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 11:30 am
by Eyes High
Peter Falk passes away. :cry:
I thought he was a good actor. Loved him a Columbo. And laughed at what they quoted him saying about art at the end of the obit. :lol:

Here's a link to his full obit.
http://www.tributes.com/show/91769156

below is a brief excerpt.
Peter Falk
TV's Columbo has died

by:FRAZIER MOORE, The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The best way to celebrate Peter Falk's life is to savor how Columbo, his signature character, fortified our lives.

Thanks to Falk's affectionately genuine portrayal, Lt. Columbo established himself for all time as a champion of any viewer who ever felt less than graceful, elegant or well-spoken.

Falk died Thursday [June 23, 2011] at age 83 in his Beverly Hills, Calif., home, according to a statement released Friday by family friend Larry Larson. In a court document filed in December 2008, Falk's daughter Catherine Falk said her father was suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

But Columbo lives on as the ideal of anyone with a smudge on his tie, whose car isn't the sportiest, who typically seems clueless, who gets dissed by fancy people.

As a police detective, Columbo's interview technique was famously disjointed, with his inevitable awkward after-thought ("Ahhh, there's just one more thing...") trying the patience of his suspect when he was already halfway out the door.

Columbo was underestimated, patronized or simply overlooked by nearly everyone he met — especially the culprit.

And yet Columbo, drawing on inner pluck for only he (and an actor as skilled as Falk) could have accounted, always prevailed. Contrary to all evidence (that is, until he nailed the bad guy), Columbo always knew what he was doing.

Even more inspiring for viewers, he was unconcerned with how other people saw him. He seemed to be perfectly happy with himself, his life, his pet bassett, Dog, his wheezing Peugeot, and his never-seen wife. A squat man chewing cigars in a rumpled trench coat, he stands tall among TV's most self-assured heroes.

What viewer won't take solace forever from the lessons that Columbo taught by his enduring example?

....

Re: Obits

Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 11:46 am
by Freakzilla
To me, he's Grandpa from The Princess Bride. I'm not old enough to remember Columbo. :wink:

Re: Obits

Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 2:53 pm
by Eyes High
Freakzilla wrote:To me, he's Grandpa from The Princess Bride. I'm not old enough to remember Columbo. :wink:
Re-runs... :P :snooty:

Re: Obits

Posted: Wed Jun 29, 2011 3:52 pm
by Omphalos
Here are some great articles about Greenberg. Never knew he did this much

http://www.uwgb.edu/univcomm/news/insid ... 05feb3.htm

http://www.jsonline.com/news/obituaries/124629288.html

Re: Obits

Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 2:35 pm
by Serkanner
Freakzilla wrote:To me, he's Grandpa from The Princess Bride. I'm not old enough to remember Columbo. :wink:
When I was a young boy I had nightmares. One of the recurring ones was that I was chased by Columbo in his raincoat and whatever I did trying to hide, he always found me ... :(

Re: Obits

Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2011 6:04 am
by SandChigger
He had his glass eye upon you... :lol:

Re: Obits

Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2011 9:22 pm
by Robspierre
Anne McCaffrey passed away.

Rob

Re: Obits

Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2011 9:37 pm
by Eyes High
Robspierre wrote:Anne McCaffrey passed away.

Rob
Noooo!! :sad-darkcloud: Oh no. Thanks for letting us know. Dang! :cry:

Re: Obits

Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2011 10:30 pm
by A Thing of Eternity
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

:(=

Re: Obits

Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2011 11:40 pm
by Hunchback Jack
Wow, that's a real shame. She was one of the good ones.

Thanks for letting us know.

HBJ

Re: Obits

Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 1:42 am
by A Thing of Eternity
A guy I know was actually fairly close friends with her and her family (he did technical consulting on one book and him and his family became characters in another), I was holding out a slim hope that I might one day meet her through him.

Re: Obits

Posted: Thu Dec 15, 2011 11:07 pm
by Omphalos
Russell Hoban died.

Re: Obits

Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2011 12:10 am
by Hunchback Jack
Christopher Hitchens lost his battle with cancer.

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/ ... s-19492011

HBJ

Re: Obits

Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2011 11:34 am
by Eyes High
Just heard that Cheetah from the original Tarzan movie died on Christmas Eve. :(= He was 80. I admit, I didn't know he was still alive. A long life for a chimp.

Edited to add:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/2 ... d%3D123407
PALM HARBOR, Fla. — A Florida animal sanctuary says Cheetah the chimpanzee sidekick in the Tarzan movies of the early 1930s has died at age 80.

The Suncoast Primate Sanctuary in Palm Harbor announced that Cheetah died Dec. 24 of kidney failure.

Sanctuary outreach director Debbie Cobb on Wednesday told The Tampa Tribune ( ) that Cheetah was outgoing, loved finger painting and liked to see people laugh. She says he seemed to be tuned into human feelings. http://bit.ly/rRuTeJ

Based on the works of author Edgar Rice Burroughs, the Tarzan stories, which have spawned scores of books and films over the years, chronicle the adventures of a man who was raised by apes in Africa.

Cheetah was the comic relief in the Tarzan films that starred American Olympic gold medal swimmer Johnny Weissmuller. Cobb says Cheetah came to the sanctuary from Weissmuller's estate sometime around 1960.

Cobb says Cheetah wasn't a troublemaker. Still, sanctuary volunteer Ron Priest says that when the chimp didn't like what was going on, he would throw feces.

Re: Obits

Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2011 12:17 pm
by Serkanner
I just read the news as well. As a kid I loved watching the old Tarzan movies with Weissmuller. he was the only one who do a real Tarzan yell. R.i.p. Cheetah.

Re: Obits

Posted: Wed Dec 28, 2011 12:21 pm
by Omphalos
Still, sanctuary volunteer Ron Priest says that when the chimp didn't like what was going on, he would throw feces.
Ive seen that happen at DN before too.

Re: Obits

Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 7:54 am
by Freakzilla
Ray Bradbury

Re: Obits

Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2012 11:47 am
by Eyes High
Freakzilla wrote:Ray Bradbury
OH No!!!

Re: Obits

Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2012 10:31 pm
by Hunchback Jack
Yeah, that's a real shame. One of the greats. Lived to be 92, though, which isn't a bad run.

Not to be morbid, but which Grand Masters of SF are still with us? I know Fred Pohl is. Larry Niven, although he's quite a bit younger (70s?). Anyone else?

HBJ

Re: Obits

Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2012 3:12 am
by Serkanner
Hunchback Jack wrote:Yeah, that's a real shame. One of the greats. Lived to be 92, though, which isn't a bad run.

Not to be morbid, but which Grand Masters of SF are still with us? I know Fred Pohl is. Larry Niven, although he's quite a bit younger (70s?). Anyone else?

HBJ
Jack Vance is still alive.

Re: Obits

Posted: Sat Jun 09, 2012 7:59 pm
by ULFsurfer
Hunchback Jack wrote:Yeah, that's a real shame. One of the greats. Lived to be 92, though, which isn't a bad run.

Not to be morbid, but which Grand Masters of SF are still with us? I know Fred Pohl is. Larry Niven, although he's quite a bit younger (70s?). Anyone else?

HBJ
Robert Silverberg

Re: Obits

Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2012 1:32 pm
by Omphalos
Boris Sturgatsky has walked to the clearing in the woods.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/no ... -fi-writer

Re: Obits

Posted: Fri May 31, 2013 11:28 am
by Omphalos
Jack Vance has walked to the clearing in the woods.

http://news.msn.com/obits/jack-vance-aw ... =ansnews11

Re: Obits

Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2013 5:17 pm
by A Thing of Eternity
Iain M Banks is dead I just found out from Omphalos.... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! No NO NO and NO again! Bahhhhhhhhhh I was looking forward to so many more years of novels from him, easily in my top 3 favourite modern SF authors, easily one of the greats. BAHUMBUG.

Re: Obits

Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2013 4:36 am
by lotek
Saw that in the morning papers, I only read a few books from him yet, but there were all very interesting and great reads.
That's sad news for everyone who likes good stories.

Re: Obits

Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2013 5:32 am
by Freakzilla
:cry:

Re: Obits

Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2013 7:11 pm
by Hunchback Jack
I can only agree, Thing. We've lost one of the great SF writers of our generation, and he was still at the top of his game, too.

And not to get too emotional, but it's not just the loss of future novels. If Banks had retired from writing to live in Scotland in peaceful - or, more likely, noisy - enjoyment, that would have been disappointing, but not tragic. But the world has lost a man of rare talent.

HBJ

Re: Obits

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 2013 12:58 pm
by A Thing of Eternity
Couldn't have put it better.

Re: Obits

Posted: Mon Jun 17, 2013 8:17 am
by Liege-Killer
I heard about Banks a couple of days ago, sad news there. He was still fairly young, wasn't he? I've only read a few of his books, and apparently not any of his best ones (going by previous conversations hereabouts), but he's in that category of authors whose work I've always meant to read more of. The blog where I heard the news offered this link discussing Banks' writing style:

http://io9.com/11-rules-of-good-writing ... -512191076

Re: Obits

Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2013 2:12 am
by Hunchback Jack
He was 59, and by all accounts, still full of life. As recently as last year, he said he still had a double-handful of Culture novels left in him.

It's worth reading the last few posts on Banksophilia by him and his wife. They are fascinating and very heart-felt.

Over a week since he passed and I'm still bummed. Dammit.

HBJ

Re: Obits

Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2013 5:17 am
by Freakzilla
I'm glad I still have several of his books left to read.

Re: Obits

Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 1:15 pm
by A Thing of Eternity
Thankfully it looks like I have around 4 more of his Culture novels to read still, I bought his latest one in hardcover the other week but haven't had time to crack it.

Re: Obits

Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 12:07 pm
by SandChigger
A friend from FB/Amazon alerted me to this when Banks announced his illness.

Very, very sad, in a very, very selfish way: No more Culture books. I really enjoyed the last one, too. :(

Ah well, I still have all his non-M non-scifi things to read...

Re: Obits

Posted: Tue Jul 16, 2013 11:15 pm
by A Thing of Eternity
Glad to see you around chig! I'm just working my way through his last one right now, savouring it.

Re: Obits

Posted: Thu Jul 18, 2013 8:53 am
by SandChigger
Yep... :(

Re: Obits

Posted: Sat Jul 20, 2013 2:00 am
by Trang
Richard Matheson Dead: Prolific Science Fiction And Fantasy Author Dies At 87

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/2 ... 93807.html

Re: Obits

Posted: Sat Jul 20, 2013 2:06 am
by Trang

Re: Obits

Posted: Sat Sep 07, 2013 2:06 am
by Serkanner
rest in peace Frederik Pohl, one of the greatest. 1919-2013

http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/

Re: Obits

Posted: Sun Sep 08, 2013 6:09 am
by lotek
Serkanner wrote:rest in peace Frederik Pohl, one of the greatest. 1919-2013

http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/
Damn!!

:cry:

Re: Obits

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2013 12:07 pm
by A Thing of Eternity
Damn. :(=

Re: Obits

Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2013 5:19 pm
by Omphalos
I really enjoyed the blog he kept, after he retired. He will be missed.


Anyone ever read his books? Gateway is one of my favorite novels of all time. I kind of liked Man Plus. It was a really wierd super-man book.

Re: Obits

Posted: Fri Sep 13, 2013 3:27 am
by Serkanner
Omphalos wrote:I really enjoyed the blog he kept, after he retired. He will be missed.


Anyone ever read his books? Gateway is one of my favorite novels of all time. I kind of liked Man Plus. It was a really wierd super-man book.
Gateway is in my top 5 novels as well. I have read Man Plus about thirty years ago. Really need to read it again ... and I have an English version now.

Re: Obits

Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2016 10:30 am
by Omphalos
David Hartwell had gone to the clearing in the woods.

https://www.facebook.com/michael.swanwi ... 5824115713

Re: Obits

Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2016 11:13 am
by Omphalos
Did we know that Harriet Klausner bit the big one last year:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mor ... d-at-63-2/

The fraud is dead. Long live the fraud.

Re: Obits

Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2016 8:51 am
by Omphalos
Kenny Baker, or R2-D2, has rolled to the clearing in the woods.

Re: Obits

Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2018 6:09 am
by ᴶᵛᵀᴬ
Ursula K. Le Guin, the groundbreaking, highly-acclaimed, and prolific author of science fiction and fantasy works—including The Left Hand of Darkness and the Earthsea series—passed away yesterday at the age of 88 in Portland, Oregon.

Re: Obits

Posted: Thu Jan 25, 2018 11:15 am
by Omphalos
A great loss to letters. le Guin transcended the ghetto, as it were.

Re: Obits

Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2018 8:55 am
by SadisticCynic
This was definitely a sad passing, but 88 is a great age to get to.

I guess when I get on to a Le Guin this year it'll be in tribute.