OTHER OBITUARIES
Astronomer and author SIR PATRICK MOORE, 89, died December 9, 2012 in Selsey, West Sussex, England. Though Moore is best known for his tireless work as an advocate for science in general and astronomy in particular via his long-running BBC television series The Sky at Night (1957-2012), he wrote a number of SF novels for children early in his career.
The Grenfell and Wright series includes Master of the Moon: An Enthralling ScienceFiction Story (1952) and The Island of Fear (1954); the Gregory Quest series is Quest of the Spaceways (1955) and World of Mists (1956); the Maurice Gray series includes Mission to Mars (1955), The Domes of Mars (1956), The Voices of Mars (1957), Peril on Mars (1958), and Raiders of Mars (1959); and the Robin North series includes Captives of the Moon (1960), Wanderer in Space (1961), Crater of Fear (1962), Invader from Space (1963), and Caverns of the Moon (1964); the Scott Saunders books are Spy in Space (1977), Planet of Fear (1977), The Moon Raiders (1978), Killer Comet (1978), and The Terror Star (1979). Standalone YA novels include The Frozen Planet (1954), Destination Luna (1955), Wheel in Space (1956), and Planet of Fire (1969). He also wrote more than a hundred books of non-fiction, most on astronomical subjects, though Science and Fiction (1957) was an early critical study of SF literature.
Patrick Alfred Caldwell-Moore was born March 4, 1923 in Pinner, Middlesex. He lied about his age and joined the RAF at age 16, serving as a navigator in the bomber command from 1940-45, and attaining the rank of flight lieutenant. His fiancée was killed by a bomb strike in London, and he never married. After the war be began writing with Guide to the Moon (1952) and started teaching. In 1957 he was offered a position hosting The Sky at Night, presenting the program for more than 700 episodes, failing to appear on only one, when he had a bout of food poisoning in 2004; the Guinness Book of World Records named him the world’s longest-serving TV presenter. He ran a planetarium in Northern Ireland for three years, returning to England in 1968 and settling in Selsey, where he remained for the rest of his life. In addition to writing, he was a well-regarded composer. Moore became a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1945, and was knighted in 2001.
•
Writer JEFF MILLAR, 70, died November 30, 2011 after a long struggle with cancer. Best known for writing the long-running syndicated comic strip Tank McNamara (1974-present), illustrated by Bill Hind, Millar was also an occasional fiction writer: SF story ‘‘Toto, I Have a Feeling We’re Not in Kansas Anymore’’ appeared in Orbit 17 (1975); thriller novel Private Sector in 1978; and zombie story ‘‘Dead and Buried’’, co-written with Alex Stern, was the basis for horror movie Dead & Buried (1981, with a novelization by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro). He was also a playwright.
Jeffrey Lynn Millar was born July 10, 1942 in Pasadena TX, growing up in League City and graduating from the University of Texas. He began writing for the Houston Chronicle in 1964, as a film and music critic, and began writing his own humor column in 1972. He worked at the Chronicle until retiring in 2000. Millar was married twice, to Lynne McDonald (later divorced) and to Peggy Jane Vance (married 1994). He and Hind created comic strip Second Chances about second marriages, and it ran from 1996-2000. Millar is survived by his wife, two stepchildren, and two grandchildren.
DEATH NOTED:
British artist MICHAEL EMBDEN, 63, died August 21, 2012 of complications from liver cancer. Embden was a prolific illustrator in the ’70s, ’80s, and into the ’90s, producing more than a hundred covers for works by authors including Poul Anderson, C.J. Cherryh, Gordon R. Dickson, Tad Williams, and Roger Zelazny.
Michael Embden’s cover for Tailchaser’s Song (1985)
Michael Harvey Embden was born September 12, 1948 in Egham, Surrey, England, moving to Hove, Sussex at age nine. In 1964 he began studying at the Brighton College of Art. He married Pamela Huck in 1970, and they had two children. In the ’90s Embden gradually moved away from illustration to focus on his true love, landscape painting, exhibiting regularly and developing a devoted following.
Embden was diagnosed with cancer in February 2009. He is survived by his wife and their children.
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EDITORIAL MATTERS
Hello, 2013, and welcome to our January issue. We hope you all had a great holiday and a happy New Year! It’s been a wild year for publishing, and things are still shaking out around digital publishing and maintaining market positions. Digital rights in old contracts are still controversial, houses are acquiring other houses, and everyone – from agents to distributors to your next door neighbor – is trying out being a publisher. We’re making a couple of changes here to incorporate more of the digital publishing realm, but it would be impossible to cover everything that’s happening now, so we’ll tackle the problem in pieces and carefully. It’s a daunting enterprise; digital publishing still feels like mostly a loooong tail, but we’ll see how it goes.
Back: Sumana Harihareswara, Heather Shaw, Brad Lyau, Le Turner, Dave Clark, Kevin Standlee. Front: AAron Buchanan & Kirsten Gong-Wong
HOLIDAY PARTY
We were on the fence about having a party this year. Two years ago three quarters of the staff came down with stomach flu right before the party, leaving Kirsten and I to run the whole show, and last year it was the same story with just the two of us doing much of the setup in a big rush. It’s a lot of work, but always worth it to see everyone in the end so we decided to go ahead. It was great, with a bunch of the usual locals plus a few extras this year. Bob & Karen Silverberg, Dick Lupoff, Nalo Hopkinson, Seanan McGuire AKA Mira Grant, Rudy & Sylvia Rucker, Terry Bisson & Judy Jensen, Ellen Klages, Madeleine Robbins, Chris Garcia, Kevin Standlee, David Moles & Meredith Trauner, Jed Hartman & Sumana Harihareswara, Brad Lyau, Vivian Perry, Cynthia Geno, Marina Fitch & Mark Budz, Lori Ann White & Gary Schockley, Rina & Jacob Weisman, interns and Locus staff, and some extra family to boot. We even figured out Charles’ labyrinthine wiring system for his stereo speakers and dug into the jazz collection for a great holiday party sound track. There were good wine, hot nibbles, a dessert spread, happy conversations, and much holiday cheer. We’re still digging our way through the leftovers! Thank you to Caitlin Beck, Le Turner, and the Buchanans for helping out so much with the party.
Seanan McGuire greets Chris Garcia; Rudy Rucker, Terry Bisson, Meredith Trauner & David Moles; Holly Shaw, Aleister Seiflein, Nora Trombi, Steven Runyon, River Shaw, Kyra Trombi; Kevin Standlee, Jacob & Rina Weisman
VISITORS
We had an unusual visit this month: Heather Curtis, of Fark.com, came by for lunch and a tour of the collection and archive. She was our $1,000 donor for the Kickstarter campaign for our Photo & Ephemera project, and was out in San Francisco visiting family, so the timing was perfect for her to collect her pledge reward of lunch with the staff and a tour. It’s always a funny thing to have people in the offices while we are working, and I wasn’t quite sure what we would do after lunch, but she dove right into the archive, going through photos and reading letters from Clarke and Butler and more, and having a good old squee time sitting on the floor in front of the morgue. It worked out well and the staff got to have Bakesale Betty sandwiches for lunch, which is a big treat around here.
Cynthia Geno, Vivian Perry, Rachel Fagundes; Caitlin Beck, Theodora Buchanan; Richard A. Lupoff, Karen Haber & Robert Silverberg; Judy Jensen, Sylvia Rucker; Gary Shockley & Lori Ann White,Mark Budz
THIS ISSUE/NEXT ISSUE
Design editor Francesca Myman flew out to Florida to board the Sailing to Success cruise, and we’ve run a piece on her experiences on board and in the workshop. There have been a number of writing cruises we’ve heard about, but never been able to cover, so when Arc Manor invited us to send a correspondent to attend, we were happy to oblige. It’s a good fit for our January issue, which tends to run a little slim because of the holidays.
Collaborative pairs can be trickier than singleton authors to interview, and Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck were quite a pair to talk to: they finish each other’s sentences frequently, and
then argue about what they meant. It’s probably a good sign for a writing team, but a different kind of interview to navigate. All in all a good conversation and a fun couple of guys. Our reviewer Adrienne Martini did the interview with Delia Sherman; she has become a bit of a stringer for me, picking up the occasional interview on the East Coast. She’s just interviewed Libba Bray too, so look for that coming up. Our next issue has planned interviews with Catherynne Valente and Brian Slattery, with a small possibility that it will drop to one interview if the issue gets too full.
I backward cast my e’e… There is a huge stack of 2012 books to look at over the holidays! The preliminary list is making its rounds now among the reviewers and more, collecting votes for the February issue’s Recommended Reading List. It feels like this year’s list is going to be longer than ever. If you noticed we missed an important book in our reviews, worthy of being recommended, let us know, or send us a copy to look at right away and we’ll try to look at it; we have another week or so before it is set in stone. January in the office will be all about finalizing Recommended Reading, getting the numbers crunched for the Book and Magazine Summaries, and starting the Locus Poll & Survey again for this year.
Speaking of polls, our web editor Mark Kelly ran an open poll at Locus Online in November for the best novels and short fiction of the 20th and 21st centuries, the first such poll Locus has conducted since those hosted by the magazine in 1975, 1987, and 1998 (with an online supplemental poll in 1999). The scope was the 20th century, 1901 to 2000, and the first decade of the 21st century, 2001 to 2010. There were five categories in each century: SF novel, fantasy novel, novella, novelette, and short story. Though I haven’t seen the results as of our press time, he has a note up on the website saying they will be posted by the end of December, so take a moment to check out the final list.
As for the Locus Awards, we have contracted with the Best Western Hotel at the Seattle Center (right across from the EMP Museum and the SF exhibit) for the Awards again; the weekend will fall on June 28-30, 2013. Leslie Howle of Northwest Media Arts is working on setting up another writing workshop during the weekend, and local Seattle convention Norwescon,
–Liza Groen Trombi
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PHOTO LIST
Nick Harkaway (F/RL)
Kit Reed (LT)
Stephen Gould (FM)
Rae Carson (LT)
Boris Strugatsky (CNB)
Arkady & Boris Strugatsky (CNB)
Boris Strugatsky, Charles N. Brown (CNB)
Daniel Abraham, Ty Franck (LT)
Gene Wolfe (BG)
Angela Carter (F/TH)
Cecelia Holland (AB)
Ernest Cline (F)
Devi Pillai (FM)
Geoff Ryman (LT)
Catherine Austen (F)
Lesley Livingston (F/RS)
Cory Doctorow (F/BN)
Norwegian Sky (F)
Pool on the Norwegian Sky (FM)
Boat to Nassau Island (FM)
Thoraiya Dyer, Jeff Giese (FM)
Francesca Myman (FM)
Eva Eldridge, Mike Resnick (FM)
Sail to Success Attendees (FM)
Sail to Success Instructors (FM)
Sumana Harihareswara, Heather Shaw, AAron Buchanan, Kirsten Gong-Wong, Brad Lyau, Le Turner, Dave Clark, Kevin Standlee (LT)
Seanan McGuire, Chris Garcia (LT)
Rudy Rucker, Terry Bisson, Meredith Trauner & David Moles (LT)
Holly Shaw, Aleister Seiflein, Nora Trombi, Steven Runyon, River Shaw, Kyra Trombi (LT)
Kevin Standlee, Jacob & Rina Weisman (LT)
Cynthia Geno, Vivian Perry, Rachel Fagundes (LT)
Caitlin Beck, Theodora Buchanan (LT)
Richard A. Lupoff, Karen Haber & Robert Silverberg (LT)
Judy Jensen, Sylvia Rucker (LT)
Gary Shockley & Lori Ann White, Mark Budz (LT)
Boris Strugatsky Collage (F)
Boris Strugatsky (F)
Boris Strugatsky (CNB)
Delia Sherman (LT)
Photos by (F/RL) Rory Lindsay, (LT) Liza Groen Trombi, (F) Francesca Myman, (CNB) Charles N. Brown, (BG) Beth Gwinn, (F/TH) Tara Heinemann, (AB) Amelia Beamer, (F/RS) Rebecca Simkin, (F/BN) Bart Nagle, (F) Furnished.
AD LIST
Ace/Roc
Baen
The Celaeri Song
Clarion
Clarion West
E-Reads
Heritage Auctions
ISFiC
Locus
Tor
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MASTHEAD
CHARLES N. BROWN
Founder
(1968-2009)
LIZA GROEN TROMBI
Editor-in-Chief
KIRSTEN GONG-WONG
Managing Editor
MARK R. KELLY
Locus Online Editor-in-Chief
CAROLYN F. CUSHMAN
TIM PRATT
Senior Editors
FRANCESCA MYMAN
Design Editor
HEATHER SHAW
Assistant Editor
BOB PALMER
Editorial Intern
JONATHAN STRAHAN
Reviews Editor
TERRY BISSON
GWENDA BOND
CORY DOCTOROW
GARDNER DOZOIS
STEFAN DZIEMIANOWICZ
AMY GOLDSCHLAGER
KAREN HABER
RICH HORTON
RUSSELL LETSON
RICHARD A. LUPOFF
FAREN MILLER
GARY K. WOLFE
Contributing Editors
KAREN BURNHAM
Roundtable Blog Editor
WILLIAM G. CONTENTO
Computer Projects
Locus, The Magazine of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Field (ISSN 0047-4959), is published monthly, at $6.95 per copy, by Locus Publications, 34 Ridgewood Lane, Oakland CA 94611. Please send all mail to: Locus Publications, PO Box 13305, Oakland CA 94661. Telephone (510) 339-9196; (510) 339-9198. FAX (510) 339-9198. E-mail:
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Locus, January 2013 Page 21
