Θάνατοι συγγραφέων στο χώρο του Φανταστικού.

[Mort13]

Dutch fantasy author and artist “W.J. Maryson” (born Wim Stolk on 1950) died on March 9, 2011. His novel De Heer van de Diepten received the 2004 Elf Fantasy Award for best fantasy novel; he also won the Paul Harland Prize in 2007 for story “Nietzsche Station”. His novels have been published in the US, Spain, Poland, Germany, and Portugal. Maryson also worked as an advertising writer, poet, muralist, portrait painter, rock musician, and composer, releasing two CDs based on his novels. He organized the Paul Harland Prize for fantasy, SF, and horror stories, and was a frequent attendee at the World Fantasy Convention. He is survived by his wife and four children.

 

 

[Mort13]

Diana Wynne Jones, 76, died March 26, 2011 of cancer. Jones was a respected and prolific author of fantasy novels, many for children and young adults. She published over forty books, and the best known include the Chrestomanci series (1977-2006), Howl’s Moving Castle (1986), and satirical non-fiction work The Tough Guide to Fantasyland (1996).

 

Born August 16, 1934 in London, Jones studied at St. Anne’s College, Oxford, from 1953-56 (where she attended lectures given by C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien), graduating with an English degree. She started her writing career as a playwright, and three of her plays were produced in London between 1967 and 1970.

 

First novel Changeover (1970) was adult humor, but afterward she shifted her focus to fantasy for younger readers. Archer’s Goon (1984) was nominated for a World Fantasy Award, and adapted into a six-part television series by the BBC in 1992. Howl’s Moving Castle was animated by Hayao Miyazaki and nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2005. She won the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award in 2007, and her books won Mythopoeic Awards in 1996 and 1999 and received multiple Carnegie commendations.

 

Forthcoming works include short novel Earwig and the Witch (2011) and a collection of non-fiction.

 

Jones was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2009, and after more than a year of treatment, she announced that she was discontinuing chemotherapy, which was only making her feel ill in her final months. She is survived by her husband, Chaucerian scholar John A. Burrow, whom she married in 1956, and their three sons and five grandchildren.

 

The Guardian in its obituary says “Her intelligent and beautifully written fantasies are of seminal importance for their bridging of the gap between ‘traditional’ children’s fantasy, as written by C.S. Lewis or E. Nesbit, and the more politically and socially aware children’s literature of the modern period, where authors such as Jacqueline Wilson or Melvyn Burgess explicitly confront problems of divorce, drugs and delinquency.”

Edited March 28, 2011 by Tauntaun13

[Mort13]

We have confirmation that Joanna Russ, 74, died this morning peacefully around 7:15 a.m. in hospice care in Tucson AZ. She has been ill since suffering a stroke in February 2011.

 

Russ was a critic and SF writer, best known for The Female Man (1975).

 

Born February 22, 1937 in New York City, she attended Cornell University, graduating in 1957 with an English degree, and earned a MFA from Yale Drama School in 1960. She taught at various colleges and universities, including a long stint at the University of Washington in Seattle beginning in 1977, before moving to Tucson.

 

Her first SF story was “Nor Custom Stale” in F&SF (1959). Notable short works include Hugo winner and Nebula Award finalist “Souls” (1982), Nebula Award and Tiptree Award winner “When It Changed” (1972), Nebula Award finalists “The Second Inquisition” (1970), “Poor Man, Beggar Man” (1971), “The Extraordinary Voyages of Amélie Bertrand” (1979), and “The Mystery of the Young Gentlemen” (1982). Her short fiction was collected in Alyx (1976; as The Adventures of Alyx, 1983), The Zanzibar Cat (1983), Extra(ordinary) People (1984), and The Hidden Side of the Moon (1988).

 

First novel Picnic on Paradise appeared in 1968, and was nominated for a Nebula Award. Other SF novels include Nebula Award finalist And Chaos Died (1970), "We Who Are About To…” (1977), and The Two of Them (1978).

 

A noted critic and scholar, Russ’s non-fiction includes the landmark feminist work How to Suppress Women’s Writing (1984), Hugo finalist To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction (1995), essay collection Magic Mommas, Trembling Sisters, Puritans and Perverts (1985), What Are We Fighting For?: Sex, Race, Class, and the Future of Feminism (1997), and The Country You Have Never Seen (2008).

 

She suffered from health problems including back pain and chronic fatigue syndrome beginning in the late ’80s, which reduced her writing output. She was admitted to hospice in April 2011 after suffering a number of strokes.

[Mort13]

Author Joel Rosenberg, 57, died June 1, 2011 following respiratory problems that led to a heart attack, brain damage, and organ failure. Rosenberg is best known for his Guardians of the Flame fantasy series, but he wrote nearly 30 books, including SF and mysteries.

 

Rosenberg’s first story was “Like Gentle Rains” in Asimov’s (1982), and his first novel was The Sleeping Dragon, beginning the Guardians of the Flame series about roleplaying gamers drawn into a fantasy world, which continued for nine more volumes from 1983-2003. Other series include the Keepers of the Hidden Ways trilogy, the Metzada series, the D’Shai sequence, the Mordred’s Heirs series, and the Sparky Hemingway mysteries.

 

Born May 1, 1954 in Winnipeg Canada, Rosenberg grew up in North Dakota and Connecticut, and attended the University of Connecticut. He was also well known as a gun instructor and 2nd Amendment activist. He is survived by his wife of 32 years, Felicia Herman, and their two daughters.

 

 

[Mort13]

Literary agent Philip Harbottle reports that his client, prolific British writer John Glasby (who also wrote as A.J. Merak), 82, died June 5, 2011.

 

Glasby began publishing in the 1950s, producing vast quantities of SF and fantasy novels under a variety of house names and personal pseudonyms for Badger Books and other publishers. He also wrote novels in the war, crime, thriller, romance, and Western genres. Some of his SF was republished in the US as by A.J. Merak. SF novel Project Jove appeared under his own name in 1971. After retirement, Glasby published numerous supernatural stories in American small press magazines and Cthulhu Mythos anthologies. In recent years new supernatural stories have appeared in original anthologies. A new collection of ghost stories, The Substance of a Shade, appeared in 2003, followed by novel The Dark Destroyer (2005). SF Mystery of the Crater was published in 2010. All of his Badger Books supernatural novels were revised and republished in the UK, and are scheduled to be reprinted in the US. In 2007 he began writing new books in the late John Russell Fearn’s Golden Amazon series, with four novels published or forthcoming.

 

John Stephen Glasby was born September 23, 1928 in Nottingham, and attended Nottingham University. He worked as a research chemist and an astronomer, was a member of the British Astronomical Society and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and authored several science textbooks.

 

In 2009 he fell and broke one hip, and later broke the other. Despite his loss of mobility, he continued writing until serious health complications set in. He is survived by his wife and their five children.

 

 

[Mort13]

Writer and editor Alan Ryan, 68, died June 3, 2011 of pancreatic cancer in Brazil.

 

Born May 17, 1943 in New York, Ryan was a prolific horror writer who won a World Fantasy Award for story “The Bones Wizard” (1984). Some of his short work was gathered in Quadriphobia (1986) and The Bones Wizard and Other Stories (1988). His novels include Panther! (1981), The Kill (1982), Dead White (1983), and Cast a Cold Eye (1985).

 

Ryan was also a respected editor, with notable anthologies including World Fantasy Award nominees Perpetual Light (1982) and Night Visions 1 (1984), as well as Halloween Horrors (1986), Vampires (1987; as The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories, 1988), and Haunting Women (1988). He was a nominee for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1980. After a 20 year absence from the genre, he recently began selling short fiction to magazines and anthologies again.

 

 

[Mort13]

Anthologist and academic Martin H(arry) Greenberg, 70, died June 25, 2011 after a long battle with cancer.

 

Greenberg held a doctorate in Political Science (1969) and taught at the University of Wisconsin — Green Bay until his retirement in 1996. He founded book packager Tekno Books, which produces about 150 titles per year and has over 2,300 published books translated into 33 languages. Greenberg received four genre Lifetime Achievement Awards: the Milford Award in science fiction, the Solstice award in science fiction, the Bram Stoker award in horror, and the Ellery Queen award in mystery.

 

Working solo and with notable colleagues including Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg, Greenberg edited scores of science fiction anthologies, as well as works in other genres and reference works. Notable academic titles include the Writers of the Twenty First Century series of anthologies reprinting critical articles on writers, coedited with Joseph D. Olander; the Through Science Fiction series, coedited with Harvey Katz and Patricia Warrick, intended for teachers.

 

 

[Mort13]

Theodore Roszak, 77, died July 5, 2011 at home in Berkeley CA of liver cancer. Roszak was most famous for his work on the ’60s youth movement, including The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society (1969). He was also a SF writer, with notable works including Bugs (1981, which won a Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire for its French translation as L’Enfant de cristal, 2008), Dreamwatcher (1985), and Tiptree Award winner The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein (1995).

 

Roszak was born November 15, 1933 in Chicago, and grew up in Los Angeles. He graduated from UCLA in 1955, and earned a PhD in history from Princeton in 1958. He taught at numerous institutions of higher learning before settling at Cal State Hayward (now Cal State East Bay) in 1963, where he remained until retiring in 1998 as professor emeritus. Roszak is survived by his wife Betty, a daughter, and a grandchild.

 

 

[Mort13]

Japanese science fiction writer, screenwriter, and essayist “Sakyo Komatsu”, (Minoru Komatsu), 80, died in Osaka of pneumonia on Tuesday July 26, 2011.

 

Komatsu authored the disaster novel Japan Sinks! (1973), which inspired two live-action movies and a television series. The Komatsu Sakyo Anime Gekijo anime TV series was also inspired by his stories. Komatsu’s work has sold millions of copies; he has won the Nihon SF Taisho award, given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Japan, and the Seiun Award. His stories “Take Your Choice” and “The Savage Mouth” have been translated into English and anthologized. He has also written manga as Minoru Mori.

 

Komatsu was born January 28, 1931 in Osaka. He took a degree in Italian literature in 1954 from Kyoto University, and worked as a magazine editor, factory foreman, and comedy scriptwriter before turning to writing science fiction. He published fanzine fiction starting in 1952, then wrote for genre magazines and Japanese newspapers. Many of his works have been adapted as anime, TV, and movies.

 

 

[Mort13]

Writer Leslie Esdaile Banks, 51, who wrote urban fantasy as L.A. Banks, died August 2, 2011 of adrenal cancer in Philadelphia PA.

 

She was born December 11, 1959 in Philadelphia, and attended the University of Pennsylvania. She got a master’s in fine arts in filmmaking from Temple University.

 

Her first fantasy novel was Minion (2003), which began the Vampire Huntress Legends series. That continued with The Awakening (2003), The Hunted (2004), The Bitten (2005), The Forbidden (2005), The Damned (2006), The Forsaken (2006), The Wicked (2007), The Cursed (2007), The Darkness (2008), The Shadows (2008), and The Thirteenth (2009). Her Crimson Moon series began with Bad Blood (2008) and also includes Bite the Bullet (2008), Undead on Arrival (2009), Cursed to Death (2009), Never Cry Werewolf (2010), and Left for Undead (2010).

 

She recently began a new series about angels with Surrender the Dark (2010) and the forthcoming Conquer the Dark (2011). She also contributed many stories and novellas to urban fantasy and paranormal romance anthologies.

 

Banks was diagnosed with late-stage adrenal cancer in June 2011, and spent her remaining weeks in the hospital, with her family and fans organizing many fundraising events to help cover her medical expenses. She is survived by her daughter Helena.

 

 

[Mort13]

Publisher’s Weekly reports via Twitter that author William Sleator, 66, died August 2, 2011 in Thailand.

 

Sleator is best known for his children’s and young adult novels, including House of Stairs (1974), Interstellar Pig (1984) and sequel Parasite Pig (2002), The Duplicate (1988), Rewind (1999), and Test (2008). He also wrote picture books, composed music, and sometimes wrote non-fiction.

 

William Warner Sleator III was born February 13, 1945 in Havre de Grace MD. He grew up in St. Louis MO and attended Harvard University, graduating with an English degree in 1967. He studied music in London in the late ’60s, and played piano for several ballet companies through the late ’70s. His first published book was children’s story and Caldecott Honor Book The Angry Moon (1970).

 

In recent years he divided his time between Boston MA and a small village in Thailand.

 

 

[Mort13]

British SF writer Colin Harvey, 50, died August 15, 2011 of a stroke.

 

Harvey began publishing short fiction in 2001, with about 30 stories appearing in various anthologies, Interzone, Albedo One, and other magazines. His first novel Vengeance appeared in 2001, followed by Lightning Days (2006), The Silk Palace (2007), Blind Faith (2008), Winter Song (2009), and Damage Time (2010). He edited anthology Killers in 2008 and Future Bristol in 2009.

 

Harvey was born November 11, 1960 in Cornwall, and lived in Bristol and Bath. He spent 20 years working for the corporation Unilever until becoming a freelance writer in 2007. He was studying creative writing at Bath Spa University. Harvey reviewed books for Strange Horizons for six years, and served as part of the management committee for the Speculative Literature foundation for five years. He is survived by Kate, his wife of 23 years.

 

 

[Mort13]

Writer and editor Mark W. Worthen, 49, died unexpectedly on September 19, 2011 in Columbia MO. Worthen was a horror writer, with short fiction appearing in various magazines and anthologies starting in 1993, including Stoker Award nominee “Final Draft” (2010). He was active in the Horror Writers Association for many years, serving as webmaster and Stoker Awards committee co-chair until his death. He received the Richard Laymon President’s Award for Service in 2007.

 

Worthen edited online horror magazine Blood Rose from 1998 to 2005, and also edited anthologies, including Desolate Souls, the World Horror Convention souvenir anthology (2008), co-edited with his second wife J.P. Edwards, who survives him.

 

Worthen was born February 10, 1962 in West Covina CA, just outside Los Angeles. He attended Brigham Young University, and taught English as a Second Language in Utah and overseas before settling in Columbia MO, where he worked at Lincoln University. He is also survived by four children from his first marriage.

 

 

[Mort13]

Australian author Sara Warneke, 54, who wrote bestselling fantasy novels as Sara Douglass, died September 26, 2011 of cancer.

 

Warneke was born June 2, 1957 in Penola Australia. She began publishing with BattleAxe (1995), and wrote more than 20 books, notably Aurealis Award winners Starman (1996), Enchanter (1996), and The Wounded Hawk (2001), as well as the Wayfarer Redemption series, the Crucible trilogy, and the Darkglass Mountain series. She lived in Tasmania, and was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2010.

 

 

[Mort13]

Les Daniels, 68, died November 5, 2011 of a heart attack in Providence RI. Daniels was best known as a comics historian and authored many books on the subject, most famously Comix: A History of the Comic Book in America (1971) and Living in Fear: A History of Horror in the Mass Media (1975). He wrote numerous other books on superheroes and the major comics companies, including World Fantasy Award nominee Superman: The Complete History (1998). Daniels was also a fiction writer, notably of the Don Sebastian de Villanueva vampire series: The Black Castle (1978), The Silver Skull (1979), Citizen Vampire (1981), Yellow Fog (1986), and No Blood Spilled (1991). His short stories include World Fantasy Award nominees “They’re Coming for You” (1986) and “The Little Green Ones” (1993). He also wrote historical fiction.

 

Leslie Noel Daniels III was born 1943 in Danbury CT. He attended Brown University, where he wrote a master’s thesis on Frankenstein, graduating in 1968. He worked variously as a composer, bluegrass musician, music writer, journalist, and reviewer.

 

 

[Tiessa]

American science fiction author Anne McCaffrey, who created the hugely popular Pern series of books about the symbiotic relationship between humans and dragons, died at home in Ireland on Monday, aged 85.

 

Her American publisher Random House said that McCaffrey passed away shortly after suffering a stroke. She is survived by her two sons and a daughter.

 

McCaffrey, who went on to publish almost 100 books, began her career in 1967 with Restoree, which she described as a "jab" at the way women were portrayed in science fiction. Later that year, she had the idea for the Dragonriders of Pern series, in which dragons and humans join forces to defend their planet from the deadly "thread" which falls from space and which, from 1967's Weyr Search to the most recent Dragon's Time, published this summer, became a smash hit.

 

The first woman to win a Hugo award and a Nebula award, McCaffrey was named a grand master of science fiction in 2005. Living in Wicklow County, Ireland [...] the author was still answering letters from her fans on her website this month.

[Oberon]

American science fiction author Anne McCaffrey, who created the hugely popular Pern series of books about the symbiotic relationship between humans and dragons, died at home in Ireland on Monday, aged 85.

 

Her American publisher Random House said that McCaffrey passed away shortly after suffering a stroke. She is survived by her two sons and a daughter.

 

McCaffrey, who went on to publish almost 100 books, began her career in 1967 with Restoree, which she described as a "jab" at the way women were portrayed in science fiction. Later that year, she had the idea for the Dragonriders of Pern series, in which dragons and humans join forces to defend their planet from the deadly "thread" which falls from space and which, from 1967's Weyr Search to the most recent Dragon's Time, published this summer, became a smash hit.

 

The first woman to win a Hugo award and a Nebula award, McCaffrey was named a grand master of science fiction in 2005. Living in Wicklow County, Ireland [...] the author was still answering letters from her fans on her website this month.

 

:( :( Πάει άλλη μια μεγάλη κυρία της ε.φ. και της φάνταζυ. Δεν θα ξεχαστεί ποτέ...

[tetartos]

A good way to die...

[Naroualis]

Το βρήκα στο Set Fazers To LOL, αλλά η είδηση είναι πάντα είδηση.

 

Comics artist Jerry Robinson, creator of the Joker and Robin, died peacefully last night. He was 87 years old.

 

Robinson joined DC comics in 1939 at the age of 17, and would continue his comics career through the rest of the 20th century. At the time, “Batman” was gaining popularity, and DC was asked to make the stories more kid-friendly, and to add a good villain. Robinson set to work, basing the new character on the recently released film “The Man Who Laughs,” and Batman’s most iconic adversary was born.

 

 

[Mort13]

Scottish writer, critic, and translator Gilbert Adair, 66, died December 8, 2011 in London.

 

Adair was born December 29, 1944 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is best known for his non-fiction work on contemporary culture, including books like Myths and Memories: A Dazzling Dissection of British Life and Culture (1986), The Postmodernist Always Rings Twice: Reflections on Culture in the 90s (1992), and Surfing the Zeitgeist (1997). He also wrote fiction, including non-genre adult work, and young-adult books with fantasy elements: Alice Through the Needle’s Eye (1984) is a sequel to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and Peter Pan and the Only Children (1987) is a sequel to J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. He also worked as a translator and editor, including anthology Wonder Tales: Six French Stories of Enchanment (1994, with Marina Warner).

 

 

[Mort13]

Thomas J. Bassler, 79 who wrote SF as T.J. Bass, died December 13, 2011. He began publishing as Bass with “Star Itch” in If (1968), and in addition to several stories, he wrote two novels nominated for Nebula Awards: fix-up Half Past Human (1970) and The Godwhale (1974). He ceased writing SF in the ’70s, though he did co-author a non-fiction book on exercise and nutrition in 1979. A medical doctor, Bassler was an early proponent of running to improve health.

 

Bassler was born July 7, 1932 in Clinton IA, and attended St. Ambrose College and the University of Iowa, earning his medical degree in 1959. He worked as a deputy medical examiner in Los Angeles from 1961-64, and went into private practice as a pathologist in 1964.

 

 

 

 

Writer Russell Hoban, 86, died December 13, 2011 in London.

 

Hoban was a celebrated children’s author, best known for his series of books about Frances the Badger (beginning with Bedtime for Frances, 1960), and for his classic The Mouse and His Child (1967). He also did many adult works of SF interest, particularly post-holocaust novel Riddley Walker (1980), which was nominated for a Nebula and won a John W. Campbell Memorial Award and a Ditmar Award. Hoban’s first publication was his children’s book What Does It Do and How Does It Work (1959), which he also illustrated. He produced text and often art for more than 50 children’s books, in addition to around 20 books for adults. He also wrote poetry, plays, and an opera libretto.

 

Russell Conwell Hoban was born February 4, 1925 in Lansdale PA. He attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art from 1941-42, then served in the US Army from 1943-45, where he was posted in Italy and was awarded a Bronze Star. He worked as a magazine and ad agency artist and TV artist in the ’50s, and as an advertising copywriter in the ’60s, before becoming a full-time writer in 1967. In 1969 he relocated to London, where he lived for the rest of his life.

 

 

[odesseo]

Σήμερα πέθανε ο Αργύρης Χιόνης (http://el.wikipedia..../Αργύρης_Χιόνης).

 

Τον ξέρατε χωρίς να το ξέρετε. (Είναι τρελοί αυτοί οι Ρωμαίοι...)

Edited December 26, 2011 by odesseo

[Naroualis]

Όχι ρε. Όχι ρε.

[Mort13]

French science fiction writer Richard Bessière died in his hometown of Béziers December 22, 2011, at the age of 88. Bessière began publishing in 1951 with a series of pulpy SF stories, Conquérants de l’Univers [Conquerors of the Universe]. He went on to publish other adventure series, and a number of stand-alone novels blending horror and science fiction, including Escale chez les Vivants [stop-Over among the Living] (1960), Les Maîtres du Silence [The Masters of Silence] (1965), and Cette Lueur Qui Venait des Ténèbres [That Light Which Came from the Dark] (1967). Bessière was one of the leading authors of French genre publisher Fleuve Noir‘s imprint Anticipation. He also wrote almost 100 spy thrillers for their Espionnage imprint, under the pen name F.-H. Ribes.

 

Louis Thirion, French science fiction writer, died December 9, 2011 in Paris. He was 88. Thirion was born October 25, 1923, and published his first novel, Waterloo, morne plaine [Waterloo, Sad Plain] in 1964. During his 40-year career he wrote over 30 novels characterized by their humor and surrealist aesthetic, several radio dramas for Théâtre de l’Étrange, and the play Les Pillules. After 1968, he published mainly with the French genre publishing house Fleuve Noir, where he became one of their most prominent authors, known for his dystopian explorations of environmental disasters.

[BladeRunner]

Ο Bessiere δεν είναι αυτός που έγραψε το Υπερεγκέφαλοι; (εκδόσεις Κένταυρος). Το συναντώ συνέχεια μπροστά μου στο Μοναστηράκι. Άραγε αξίζει να το πάρω;