American author Robert E. (Ervian) Margroff died after a long illness on May 25, aged 85. His first story, ‘Monster Tracks’, appeared in If in 1964, and he sold a number of other stories (some written in collaboration with Piers Anthony and Andrew J. Offutt) to that magazine, as well as to the anthologies Orbit and Protostars. Margroff also collaborated with Anthony on the novels The Ring, The E.S.P. Worm and the five-volume series “Adventures of Kelvin of Rud” (1987-92).
Doris Elaine Sauter, a friend of Philip K. Dick, died the same day, aged 63. In 2000 she co-edited (with Gwen Lee) What If Our World is Their Heaven? The Final Conversations of Philip K. Dick.
French-Canadian author and editor Joël Champetier died of leukemia on May 30, aged 57. His first adult SF novel, La taupe et le dragon (aka The Dragon’s Eye) was published in 1991, and he also worked as an editor with the French-language Solaris magazine. Champetier was a Guest of Honour at the 2007 World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, New York.
Italian screenwriter Callisto Cosulich, who co-scripted the original Italian version of Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires (1965), died on June 6, aged 92.
Former Los Angeles County deputy district attorney Vincent T. Bugliosi, Jr. died of cancer on June 8, aged 80. He gained fame for his prosecution of Charles Manson and his followers for the brutal murder of Roman Polanski’s actress wife Sharon Tate and six others in 1969. Bugliosi later became a best-selling true crime writer, and he co-authored (with Curt Gentry) the book Helter Skelter (filmed twice for TV), about the Manson murders.
American book cover artist Paul Bacon died the same day, aged 91. Amongst the more than 6,500 covers he created were those for Catch-22, Slaughterhouse-Five, The Andromeda Strain and Ellen Datlow’s anthology Alien Sex.
Czech-born German SF editor, publisher and author Wolfgang Jeschke (aka “Hansjörg Präger”) died on June 10, aged 78. For many years he worked for the German publishing imprint Heyne Verlag, and his first novel, Der letzte Tag der Schöpfung (aka The Last Day of Creation), was published in 1981. Jeschke edited more than 100 anthologies, and he was one of the Guests of Honour at ConFiction, the 1990 World Science Fiction Convention in the Hague.
92-year-old American artist Earl H. Norem died on June 19, shortly after ungoing surgery. During the 1950s and ‘60s he worked for the men’s adventure magazines, illustrating covers and interior spreads. At Marvel, the comics he worked on include Planet of the Apes, Savage Sword of Conan, Tales of the Zombie and Monsters Unleashed. Norem also contributed to Charlton Comics’ The Six Million Dollar Man, the Worlds of Power Wizards & Warriors book series, and Mars Attacks trading cards sets.
Oscar-winning Hollywood composer James (Roy) Horner was killed in a light plane crash in California on June 22. Horner was 61, and he composed the music scores for Up from the Depths, Humanoids from the Deep, Battle Beyond the Stars, The Hand (1981), Wolfen, Deadly Blessing, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Krull, Brainstorm (1983), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Cocoon, Aliens, Captain EO, The Name of the Rose, An American Tail, Project X, *batteries not included, Willow, Vibes, The Land Before Time, Cocoon: The Return, Field of Dreams, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, The Rocketeer, An American Tail: Fieval Goes West, We’re Back! A Dinosaur Story, The Pagemaster, Casper, Jumanji, Deep Impact, Mighty Joe Young (1998), Bicentennial Man, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Forgotten, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Avatar and The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), amongst many other movies. His music for Battle Beyond the Stars was recycled by producer Roger Corman for such movies as Space Raiders, Barbarian Queen, Wizards of the Lost Kingdom and Deathstalker III: Warriors from Hell. Horner also contributed music to episodes of TV’s Faerie Tale Theatre, Amazing Stories and Tales from the Crypt, and he created the theme for the 1990-97 Universal Pictures logo.
American comic-strip artist Leonard Starr, who illustrated Annie from 1979 to 2000, died on June 30, aged 89. He also developed and scripted the Rankin/Bass animated TV series ThunderCats (1985-87), but was forced to sue for a share of the merchandising profits.
Reclusive American author and former journalist Jeff Rice (Jeffrey Grant Rice), who created the character of rumpled newspaper man Carl Kolchak, died in Las Vegas on July 1, aged 71. He had suffered from depression thoughout most of his adult life. In 1972, Rice’s then-unpublished novel The Night Stalker was adapted by Richard Matheson into the highest-rated TV movie ever aired, with an audience share of 54%. They followed it the following year with a sequel, The Night Strangler, which led to two short-lived TV series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974-75) and The Night Stalker (2005-06), along with a comic book series from Moonstone Books.
Italian screenwriter and director Sergio Sollima (aka “Simon Sterling” /”Roger Higgins, III”) died the same day, aged 94. He scripted such films as Ursus, Goliath Against the Giants, The Fury of Hercules, Maciste contro lo sceicco, Ursus il gladiatore ribelle and other early peplums, as well as also writing and directing Agent 3S3: Passport to Hell, Agent 3S3: Massacre in the Sun and Devil in the Brain.
Walt Disney animator (Ira) Blaine Gibson died of heart failure on July 5, aged 97. He worked on such movies as Pinocchio, Bambi, Song of the South, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty and 101 Dalmations. He then moved full-time over to Walt Disney Imagineering, where he sculpted many of the iconic attractions and audio-animatronic figures (including Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, The Enchanted Tiki Room and It’s a Small World) at the Disney theme parks. Gibson was inducted as a Disney Legend in 1993.
American horror and crime author Tom Piccirilli (Thomas Edward Piccirilli) died after a long battle with cancer on July 11, aged 50. His novels The Night Class and The Cold Spot both won the HWA Bram Stoker Award, and his other books include Dark Father, Shards, A Choir of Ill Children, Coffin Blues, Headstone City, The Midnight Road and Shadow Season. Piccirilli’s short fiction was collected in The Hanging Man and Other Strange Suspensions, The Dog Syndrome and Other Sick Puppies and the World Fantasy Award-nominated Deep Into That Darkness Peering, amongst other titles. Two volumes of his poetry also won Stoker Awards, along with the poetry anthology he edited, The Devil’s Wine. Piccirilli co-scripted the 1995 vampire movie Addicted to Murder.
American comics artist Alan Kupperberg, who worked on such titles as X-Men, Thor, Spider-Man and Defenders for Marvel, and Justice League of America for DC, died on July 17, aged 62.
American composer Van Alexander (Alexander Van Vliet Feldman) died of heart failure July 19, aged 100. He composed the scores for such William Castle movies as 13 Frightened Girls!, Strait-Jacket and I Saw What You Did, along with The Atomic Kid and Tarzan and the Valley of Gold, and episodes of TV’s Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie.
American screenwriter Douglas S. Cook died the same day, aged 56. Best known as co-writer of The Rock (1996) and Double Jeopardy (1999) with David Weisberg, the pair also scripted the 2016 mind-swap thriller Criminal starring Kevin Costner and Ryan Reynolds.
American fantasy writer and costume fan Adrienne Martine-Barnes died on July 20, aged 73. Her first story appeared in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s “Darkover” anthology Swords of Chaos (1982), and she went on to write the novels The Dragon Rises, The Fire Sword, The Crystal Sword, The Rainbow Sword and The Sea Sword. With Bradley, she co-wrote the “Darkover” books Exile’s Song, The Shadow Matrix and Traitor’s Sun, and she collaborated with Diana L. Paxson of the “Chronicles of Fionn mac Cumhal” trilogy: Master of Earth and Water, The Shield Between the Worlds and Sword of Fire and Shadow.
American author, editor and professor E.L. (Edgar Lawrence) Doctorow died on July 21, aged 84. Best known for his 1975 novel Ragtime, his novels Big as Life and The Waterworks contain fantastic elements.
American Tolkien fan and filk singer Renee Alper died from an infection on July 27, aged 58. She suffered from arthritis and had to use a wheelchair for much of her life, and a car accident in 1989 left her with a broken neck. Alper founded the American Hob
bit Association in 1977 and was also a member of the Mythopoeic Society.
81-year-old Disney historian John Culhane died of complications from cardiac failure on July 30. His books about the studio include Walt Disney’s Fantasia, Aladdin: The Making of an Animated Film and Fantasia/2000: Visions of Hope, and he also wrote the 1986 study Special Effects in the Movies: How They Do It: Dazzling Movie Magic and the Artists Who Create It. Culhane also did some uncredited work on the script for Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, and he assisted Richard Williams on the animated feature The Thief and the Cobbler (featuring the voice of Vincent Price).
British-American historian, poet and author Robert Conquest OBE (George Robert Acworth Conquest) died of pneumonia on August 3, aged 98. Best known for his influential works on Soviet history, he also wrote the 1955 SF novel A World of Difference (set in a futuristic 2010), edited The Robert Sheckley Omnibus, and co-edited the five Spectrum anthologies (1961-66) with his longtime friend Kingsley Amis. He is famous for his epigraph: “SF’s no good,” they bellow ‘til we’re deaf. “But this is good!” “Well, then, it’s not SF.”
American artist Jef Murray, who illustrated books by J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, died the same day, aged 55.
Rick Obadiah, who co-founded the American independent comics imprint First Comics in 1983 with Mike Gold, died of a heart attack at the gym on August 16, aged 66. First Comics published Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg, adaptations of Michael Moorcock’s “Eternal Champion” series, and translations of the Japanese manga Lone Wolf and Cub. Obadiah had also been a producer for Stuart Gordon’s Organic Theatre Company.
American SF writer and fan Jor (Marjorie) Jennings died of a heart attack on August 27. Her short stories appeared in Galaxy, Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine, The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories and L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, and she was a quarterly winner of the first Writers of the Future contest in 1984.
American SF fan and collector Ned Brooks (Cuyler Warnell Brooks, Jr.) died on August 31 after a fall from his roof while carrying out repairs. He was 77. His fanzines include It Comes in the Mail (1972-78) and It Goes on the Shelf, which he started in 1985. With Dan Martin he compiled the Hannes Bok Illustration Index (1970) and the Revised Hannes Box Checklist (1974), and he published two indices of artwork from Vaughn Bode and Tim Kirk by George Beahm. A NASA engineer, Brooks was Fan Guest of Honour at Rivercon IV in 1978 and DeepsouthCon 39 in 2001.
David Marshall, who published a number of independent book titles under the Pumpkin Books imprint in Britain between 1997-99, before fleeing the country for Singapore owing creditors money, most probably died around the end of August or early September. Marshall, who published books by Peter Atkins, Ramsey Campbell, David Case, Hugh B. Cave, Dennis Etchison, Jo Fletcher, Stephen Jones, Nancy Kilpatrick, Jay Russell and Bram Stoker, had been suffering from cancer and reportedly decided to end his life by refusing to drink liquids.
Edgar Award-winning American author Warren (Burton) Murphy, co-creator with Richard Sapir of the popular “The Destroyer” series (which totals more than 100 titles since 1971), died on September 4, aged 81. The books were adapted into the movies Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985) and Remo Williams: The Prophecy (1988).
British-born former actress turned best-selling author Jackie Collins OBE (Jacqueline Jill Collins), the younger sister of actress Joan, died of breast cancer in Los Angeles on September 19. She was 77. Her books sold more than 400 million copies in forty countries, and she appeared as herself in Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (2015).
American book publisher and television producer Jeremy (Phillip) Tarcher, who packaged celebrity volumes and New Age titles, died of Parkinson’s disease on September 20, aged 83. In 1969 he and his ventriloquist wife Shari Lewis (who died in 1998) co-scripted the Star Trek episode ‘The Lights of Zetar’.
British SF fan, critic and artist D. (Don) West died of cancer on September 25, aged 70. He also published his own fanzine, Daisnaid (Do As I Say Not As I Do), from 1976-97.
Austrian-born British TV script-editor and producer Ruth Boswell (Ruth Neubauer) died on October 1, aged 86. She co-created the ATV series Timeslip (1970-71) with her then-husband James Boswell, and went on to produce such shows as The Tomorrow People, Shadows, The Feathered Serpent and The Uninvited. As an author, she published her own books (including the alternate world novel Out of Time) under the Muswell Press imprint.
Texas fan Fred Duarte, Jr. died after a long illness on October 3, aged 58. He chaired three Armadillocons and was the convention’s fan Guest of Honour in 2011. Duarte also chaired the 2000 and 2006 World Fantasy Conventions in Corpus Christi and Austin, respectively.
Árpád Göncz, the former President of Hungary (1990-2000), died on October 6, aged 93. He translated many English books into Hungarian, including Frankenstein, The Lord of the Rings and many titles by William Golding.
India-born British newsreader and novelist (Ronald) Gordon Honeycombe died of leukaemia in Perth, Western Australia, on October 9, aged 79. He resigned as an ITN newscaster in 1977 over his support of the fireman’s strike. Honeycombe’s superior 1969 supernatural novel Neither the Sea Nor the Sand was filmed in 1972 (aka The Exorcism of Hugh) from his own script, and his other books include Dragon Under the Hill, and the nonfiction studies The Murders of the Black Museum (1870-1970) and The Murders of the Black Museum (1835-1985). He also scripted episodes of TV’s Late Night Theatre (‘Time and Time Again’) and Time for Murder (‘The Thirteenth Day of Christmas’). A former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Honeycombe had an uncredited role as a stretcher-bearer in the 1958 movie Blood of the Vampire, and he appeared as a newsreader in The Medusa Touch and other films and TV shows.
American military SF writer Bill Baldwin died on October 14, aged 80. Best known for his “Helmsman” series of novels, which began in 1985 with The Helmsman and encompassed seven sequels, he also wrote the stand-alone Canby’s Legion.
Romanian SF writer Liviu Radu died on October 16, aged 66. He also translated novels by Isaac Asimov, Neil Gaiman, George R.R. Martin, Dean Koontz and A. Merritt.
Seven months after the death of Ted Ball, his co-founder of London specialist bookstore Fantasy Centre in 1969, Scottish-born bookseller Dave Gibson died of cancer on October 21, aged 76. Gibson eventually sold his share in the shop to Erik Arthur and moved back to Scotland in 1991, where he became a successful book-finder.
American comic book artist Murphy Anderson, who co-created the character “Zatanna” in 1964 with Gardner F. Fox, died of heart failure on October 22, aged 89. One of the greatest artists of the “Silver Age” of comics, he began his career in 1944, illustrating for such pulp magazines as Planet Stories and working on strips at Fiction House. From 1947-49 he illustrated the Buck Rogers newspaper strip, but he was best known for his work at DC during the 1950s and ‘60s. Often an inker for such artists as Carmine Infantino, Curt Swan and Gil Kane, Anderson co-created (with John Broome) ‘The Atomic Knights’ for Strange Adventures, and he worked on Mystery in Space (‘Adam Strange’), Showcase, The Atom, Hawkman, Justice League of America, The Flash, The Spectre and many other titles. He was presented with the Will Eisner Award in 1999.
British film critic Penelope Houston, who edited Sight & Sound magazine from 1956-99, died on October 26, aged 88. She also wrote for The Monthly Film Bulletin, The Observer and The Guardian, and was the author of several books on films.
French science fiction and thriller writer Yal Ayerdhal (Marc Soulier) died of lung cancer the same day, aged 56. His multi-volume SF novel La Bohême et l’Ivraie (Boohemia and Chaff) appeared in 1990, and he edited the 1996 anthology Genèses before becoming a best-selling thriller writer.
Japanese artist Noriyoshi Ohrai, best known for his posters in Japan for the first three Star Wars movies and nine Godzilla productions, died of pneumonia on October 27, aged 79. Ohrai also created the art for the Japanese Mad Max poster, along with many books and gaming projects.
; American horror writer and fitness instructor Nick Kisella died of a torn aorta on October 28, aged 49. His first novel, The Emerald and the Blade, was published in 1989, and he followed it with The Chalice of Souls, Death and the Doomweaver, The Beasts and the Walking Dead, Under Construction, Crossing Lines, Morningstars, Darque & Obscure, The Eyes of the Jackal, and Lilith’s Apple (a collaboration with “Scream Queen” Deana Demko), along with such low budget movie tie-ins as I Spill Your Guts, Sheriff Tom vs. the Zombies and Mary Horror. Kisella also made cameo appearances in the movie Witches Blood and an episode of the independent TV series Zombies Incorporated.
American book and pulp collector Victor Berch died on October 30, aged 91. He specialised in paperback books, especially dime novels and Lancer titles.
American horror author T.M. (Terrance Michael) Wright (aka “F.W. Armstrong”) died of Parkinson’s disease on Halloween, aged 68. His novels include A Manhattan Ghost Story, The Waiting Room, The Last Vampire, Goodlow’s Ghost, The Ascending and Cold House, while some of his short fiction is collected in Bone Soup.
American screenwriter Melissa (Marie) Mathison, who was nominated for an Oscar for her original screenplay for Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, died of neuroendocrine cancer on November 4, aged 65. She also scripted George Clayton Johnson’s ‘Kick the Can’ episode of Twilight Zone: The Movie as “Josh Rogan”, The Indian in the Cupboard and Spielberg’s 2016 version of Roald Dahl’s The BFG. During arbitration in the late 1980s, the Writers Guild of America successfully argued that Mathison should receive a share of revenue from all merchandise featuring E.T., and she was awarded 4%-5% on all products bearing the likeness of the character she created. She was married to actor Harrison Ford, who she first met while working as an assistant on Apocalypse Now, from 1983-2004. After their divorce, Mathison received an estimated $100-$115 million in what was then the third highest alimony settlement in history.
Rena Wolner (Rena Meryl Tannenbaum), the only woman in America to become publisher of three major mass-market publishing companies—Berkley Publishing, Pocket Books and Avon Books—died of lung cancer on November 7. She was 70.
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