American children’s author Patricia C. (Carwell) McKissack died on April 7, aged 72. She co-authored “The Clone Codes” SF trilogy (The Clone Codes, Cyborg and TheVisitor) with John McKissack and Fredrick L. McKissack, and her short fiction is collected in A Piece of the Wind and Other Stories to Tell and A Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural.
Roy Millenson, whose only SF story, “183rd Congress” appeared in the May 1954 issue of Science Fiction Adventures, died of cerebrovascular disease on April 9. He was 95.
American author V. (Victoria) E. (Estelle) Mitchell [Gustafson] died on April 13, aged 62. She wrote the tie-in novels Star Trek: Enemy Unseen, Star Trek: Windows on a Lost World, Star Trek the Next Generation #22: Imbalance and Star Trek the Next Generation Starfleet Academy: Atalantis Station. Three of her short stories are collected in the self-published chapbook Ekaterin and Other Stories.
Japanese anime artist and animator Norio Shioyama died with his wife in a high-rise apartment fire the same day. He was 77.
American author and screenwriter William Hjortsberg died of pancreatic cancer on April 22, aged 76. His 1978 novel Falling Angel was filmed a decade later by Alan Parker as Angel Heart. He also wrote the novels Gray Matters and Nevermore (featuring Edgar Allan Poe, Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), and the collection Tales & Fables, and he scripted Ridley Scott’s fantasy movie Legend (1985).
American-born author and musician Patrick Meadows died on the island of Majorca, Spain, the same day, aged 83. During the late 1960s and early ’70s he had one story published in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact (which also became the title story for the 1970 anthology Countercommandment and Other Stories) and four in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Meadows also contributed a painting to Spectrum 9: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art. From 1969 until 2008 he was co-founder and director of Majorca’s International Music Festival of Deià.
American academic, critic and reviewer Roger C. (Clark) Schlobin died on April 25, aged 72. His genre studies include A Research Guide to Science Fiction Studies (with Marshall B. Tymm and L.W. Curry), The Literature of Fantasy: A Comprehensive Annotated Bibliography of Modern Fantasy Fiction, Andre Norton: A Primary and Secondary Bibliography and Phantasmagoria: Collected Essays on the Nature of Fantasy and Horror Fiction. Schlobin also had two stories published in anthologies, and he wrote the novel Fire and Fur: The Last Sorcerer Dragon.
73-year-old American author and editor Grania Davis (Grania Eve Kaiman) died on April 28 after losing consciousness in a movie theatre. She was married to author Avram Davidson from 1962-64, and collaborated with him on Marco Polo and the Sleeping Beauty and The Boss in the Wall: A Treatise on the House Devil (reprinted in Best New Horror #10). Following Davidson’s death in 1994, she co-edited the collections of his stories The Avram Davidson Treasury: A Tribute Collection (with Robert Silverberg), The Investigations of Avram Davidson (with Richard A. Lupoff), and The Other Nineteenth Century: A Story Collection, ¡Limekiller! and The Ennead: The Romaunt of Vergil Magus: The Scarlet Fig; Or, Slowly Through a Land of Stone (all with Henry Wessels). Davis’ own books include Dr Grass, The Rainbow Annals, The Great Perpendicular Path and Moonbird, while her short fiction was collected in Tree of Life, Book of Death: The Treasures of Grania Davis. She also co-edited the anthologies Everybody Has Somebody in Heaven: Essential Jewish Tales of the Spirit with Jack Dann and Speculative Japan: Outstanding Tales of Japanese Science Fiction and Fantasy with Gene Van Troyer.
Davis was briefly involved with author Philip K. Dick, and the writer’s third wife, Anne R. Dick (Anne Browning Williams), died the same day, aged 90. The couple were married from 1959-68, and her memoir The Search for Philip K. Dick was published in 2010.
American art and book collector Dr. Howard Frank died of complications from a bacterial infection on May 1, aged 75. A recipient of the Department of Defence’s highest civil honour, the Presidential Distinguished Service Medal, for his expertise in information technology and contributions to the development of the Internet, he and his wife Jane published two books about their legendary art collection, The Frank Collection: A Showcase of the World’s Finest Fantastic Art and Great Fantasy Art Themes from the Frank Collection. Frank also contributed a number of articles about artists to Realms of Fantasy magazine.
Pioneering British comics historian and writer Alan Austin died of cancer on May 10, aged 62. He edited the 1970s fanzine Fantasy Unlimited (later Comics Unlimited) and in 1983 co-published the first Comic Guide for Great Britain with Justin Ebbs and Gary Fox. For many years Austin ran the comics store Heroes in Islington, London.
American SF author Louis [Henry] Charbonneau died in Canada on May 11, aged 93. His books include No Place on Earth, Corpus Earthling, The Sentinel Stars, Psychedelic-40, Down to Earth, The Sensitives, Barrier World and the movie novelisation of Embryo. Two 1960s episodes of TV’s The Outer Limits were based on his work.
British comics artist Edmund Bagwell died of pancreatic cancer on May 14, aged 50. His strips appeared in such titles as Black Axe, Marvel Comics Presents (‘Nick Fury’), Crisis and 2000 AD (‘Judge Dredd’, ‘Cradlegrave’ and ‘Tharg’s Future Shocks’).
Belgian comic book artist and writer Pierre Seron (aka “Foal”) died on May 24, aged 75. He is best known for his long-running series Les petits hommes (The Little Men).
Renowned British anthologist, scholar and bookseller Richard [Lawrence] Dalby died of complications from diabetes on April 28, aged 68. One of the most learned authorities on supernatural and children’s fiction, he edited many anthologies, including The Sorceress in Stained Glass & Other Ghost Stories (for which he rediscovered a “lost” story by M.R. James), Dracula’s Brood: Rare Vampire Stories by Friends and Contempories of Bram Stoker, Ghosts and Scholars: Ghost Stories in the Tradition of M.R. James (with Rosemary Pardoe), Ghosts for Christmas, Chillers for Christmas, Tales of Witchcraft, Horror for Christmas, Vampire Stories, Shivers for Christmas and Twelve Gothic Tales, along with various volumes of The Virago Book of Ghost Stories and The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories. Dalby also compiled a number of single-author collections for The Ghost Story Press, Ash-Tree Press and Sarob Press, amongst other imprints, and he was a regular contributor to the Book & Magazine Collector.
American children’s book author and illustrator Geoffrey Hayes died on June 2, aged 69. He was working on a graphic-novel fairytale, Lovo and the Firewolf, at the time of his death.
Australian illustrator turned novelist Arthur [Richard] Mather died on June 4, aged 91. He co-created and drew Atlas Publications’ Captain Atom comic (1948-54) and later went on to write such techno-thrillers as The Mind Breaker, The Duplicate and The Pawn.
British author and poet Helen Dunmore, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, died of cancer on June 5, aged 64. Her books include the “Ingo” series and the ghost novel for Hammer, The Greatcoat. Dunmore also had stories published in four 1990s anthologies edited by Tony Bradman, including Incredibly Creepy Stories.
Eisner Award-winning American comics writer James Vance, best known for scripting Tekno Comix’s Mr. Hero the Newmatic Man, created by Neil Gaiman in the mid-1990s, died of cancer the same day, aged 64. His other credits include Kings in Disguise and its sequel On the Ropes, along with Aliens: Survival, Predator: Homeworld and three issues of Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight.
American author and Professor Emeritus of the City University of New York, Morton N. (Norton) Cohen, died on June 12, aged 96. He wrote biographies of Lewis Carroll, H. Rider Haggard and Rudyard Kipling.
American business executive Jim Galton (James E. Galton), who was the president and CEO of Marvel Entertainment Group from 1975-91, and who is credited with saving the company from bankruptcy, died the same day, aged 92. Galton was also president of the paperback imprint Popular Library from 1968 until he was fired by the company’s new owner, CBS.
American author John Dalmas (John Robert Jones) died on June 15, aged 90. He published his first SF story in Analog Science Fiction/
Science Fact in 1970, and he went on to write a number of novels in different series, including The Yngling, Fanglith, The General’s President, The Lizard War, The Lantern of God, The Lion of Farside and The Second Coming, amongst others. Dalmas’ short fiction is collected in Otherwhens, Otherwheres: Favorite Tales.
American academic William F. Touponce, who co-founded the Center for Ray Bradbury Studies at Indiana University and The New Ray Bradbury Review, died the same day, aged 68. He also wrote books on Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert.
Italian author, screenwriter, editor and translator Sergio Altieri (aka “Alan D. Altieri”) died of a heart attack on June 16, aged 65. Known as the “Italian Master of the Apocalypse”, his books include Dark City, City of Shadows, Last Light, the award-winning Kondor, the historical “Magdeburg” trilogy (The Heretic, The Fury and The Daemon) and the “Terminal War” trilogy (Juggernaut, Magellan and the forthcoming Maelstrom). Altieri was editorial director of a number of series for Mondadori from 2006-11, and he translated the first two volumes of Prelude to Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, George R.R. Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire” saga, and The Dominator of Darkness, a 2012 collection of the best stories by H.P. Lovecraft. He also worked for producer Dino De Laurentiis as a script editor on such movies as Conan the Destroyer and Blue Velvet.
American role-playing games designer and author Stewart Wieck died of a heart attack on June 22, aged 49. With his brother Steve, Wieck began self-publishing the fanzine Arcanum while still in high school, soon retitling it White Wolf as a tribute to Michael Moorcock. In 1991 the brothers formed the White Wolf Game Studio with Mark Rein-Hagen, publishing Vampire: The Masquerade and creating the World of Darkness and Mage: The Ascension. Stewart Wieck wrote a number of novels in the “World of Darkness” universe, including titles in the Vampire: The Masquerade, Mage: The Ascension, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Wraith: The Oblivion and Hunter: The Reckoning series. He resigned from White Wolf in 2010 to set up Nocturnal Games.
British children’s author [Thomas] Michael Bond CBE, the creator of Paddington the bear, died following a short illness on June 27, aged 91. He wrote the first of many Paddington books, A Bear Called Paddington, in 1958 while working as a cameraman at the BBC. The marmalade-loving character from Peru has been adapted for TV and, more recently, the movies (Bond made a brief appearance in Paddington [2014], and he also created the 1970s chidren’s TV series The Herbs).
American author and editor William L. (Lawrence) Hamling died on June 29, aged 96. He was the managing editor of the pulp magazines Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures from 1948-51 and editor and publisher of the digest magazines Imagination (1951-58) and Imaginative Tales (1955-58). His fiction appeared in Amazing Stories, Fantastic Adventures, Mammoth Detective, Mammoth Western, Imagination, Spaceways, Science Fiction Adventures and other titles. In 1955 Hamling also founded and began editing the slick men’s magazine Rogue, and four years later he started publishing paperback books under various imprints through his Greenleaf Publishing Company. These included many adult titles (often under pseudonymous bylines) by authors such as Robert Silverberg, Harlan Ellison, Philip José Farmer, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Robert Bloch, Donald E. Westlake and Kurt Vonnegut. Hamling was a member of First Fandom and was married to science fiction author Frances Deegan Yerxa Hamling.
American author William Sanders died on June 30, aged 75. His books include the alternate history Journey to Fusang and the collections Are We Having Fun Yet?: American Indian Fantasy Stories and East of the Sun and West of Fort Smith. As “Will Sundown” he wrote the novels Pockets of Resistance and the sequel The Hellbound Train. He won the Sidewise Award for two alternate history stories, and he edited Helix SF with Lawrence Watt-Evans from 2006-09.
British TV presenter and journalist Barry [Leslie] Norman CBE, the son of film and TV director Leslie Norman, died of lung cancer and pneumonia the same day, aged 83. From 1972-98 he presented the BBC’s popular Film review programme, along with other movie-inspired series, many of which he also scripted. Although Norman was not a fan of horror films (he considered David Cronenberg’s Shivers the worst film he’d ever seen), he did write a science fiction novel, End Product (1975), and for a number of years he scripted Wally (“Trog”) Fawkes’ satirical newspaper strip Flook in The Daily Mail. He also had his own brand of pickled onions, based on an old family recipe.
69-year-old Californian bookseller and SF fan Dwain [George] Kaiser was shot to death in the apartment above his store, Magic Door Used Books in Pomona, on July 3. Police arrested a 17-year-old who, with his mother, were longtime housemates of Kaiser and his wife. A member of the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society since 1965, Kaiser edited a number of fanzines, including Astron, By Strange Unseen Gods, Nimrod, Nonstop Fun is Hard on the Heart and No Time, No Energy & Not Much to Say.
Joan B. Lee (Joan Clayton Boocock), Marvel Comics’ writer-editor Stan Lee’s English-born wife for nearly seventy years, died of complications from a stroke in Los Angeles on July 6, aged 95. She contributed voice work to the 1990s TV cartoon series Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, and she had a cameo as herself in X-Men: Apocalypse (2016). Stan Lee publicly credited his wife for supporting him early in his career, when he was trying to create superheroes that readers could care about.
American “Golden Age” comics and newspaper artist Bob Lubbers (Robert Bartow Lubbers) died on July 8, aged 95. In the early 1950s he drew the Tarzan strip and went on to illustrate The Saint, Secret Agent X-9 and Li’l Abner. Lubbers also worked for DC and Marvel, and some of his work was collected in 2001 in Glamour International: The Good Girl Art of Bob Lubbers.
Canadian playwright and short film-maker David Widdicombe died the same day, aged 55. His 2000 play Science Fiction won the Canadian Aurora Award.
92-year-old American comics artist Sam Glanzman (Samuel Joseph Glanzman) died on July 12, following surgery after a fall. He entered the comics industry in 1939 and created the character of “Fly-Man” for Harvey Comics. For Dell Comics he drew the movie tie-in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Kona Monarch of Monster Isle. Glanzman illustrated issues of Tarzan for Charlton Comics, and he co-created Hercules: Adventures of the Man-God (1967-69) for the same company. He also worked on various war titles for Charlton, DC and Marvel.
American SF author Jeff[Gustav] Carlson died of lung cancer on July 17, aged 47. His books include the trilogy Plague Year, Plague War and Plague Zone, and the series The Frozen Sky, Betrayed and Blindsided. He also wrote the stand-alone novel Interrupt, and his short fiction is collected in Long Eyes and Other Stories.
“Fabulous Flo” Steinberg (Florence Steinberg), who began her career as one-half of the fledgling Marvel Comics with Stan Lee in 1963, died of complications from a brain aneurysm and metastatic lung cancer on July 23, aged 78. During the 1960s she was not only Lee’s secretary, but also the company’s receptionist and fan liaison. Steinberg left Marvel in 1968 and set up her own independent/underground imprint, Big Apple Comix, in 1975.
Science fiction fan and radio presenter Alan Dorey, who was chairman of the British Science Fiction Association (1979-85) and co-edited the magazines Vector (1979-85) and Matrix (1982-84), died the same day, aged 59. Dorey was also part of the original Interzone collective in the early 1980s.
American-born Canadian author H. (Henry) A. Hargreaves died on July 27, aged 89. He published his first SF story in 1963 in New Worlds, and his short fiction is collected in North by 2000 (expanded as North by 2000+).
American music composer Daniel [James] Licht died of cancer on August 2, aged 60. Best known for his award-winning work on all eight seasons of Showtime’s serial-killer TV series Dexter (2006-13), his many other credits include Atrapados, Children of the Night, Amityville 1992: It’s About Time, Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice, Severed Ties, Ticks, Amityville: A New Generation, Necronomicon: Book of the Dead, Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest, Hellraiser: Bloodline, Thinner, Bad Moon, Brave New World, Legion of Fire: Killer Ants!, Don’t Look U
nder the Bed, Cabin by the Lake, Soul Survivors (2001), King Solomon’s Mines (2004), Beneath the Dark, Ghostmates and an episode of TV’s Monsters. Licht also contributed the music scores to the video games Silent Hill: Downpour and Silent Hill: Book of Memories.
British-born Australian SF author [Herbert] Jack Woodhams died on August 3, aged 85. His first short story appeared in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact in 1967, and he went on to publish three novels, The Authentic Touch, Looking for Blücher and Ryn, and the collection Future War.
American bookseller Roger Carlson died of heart failure on August 4, aged 89. His wonderful labyrinthine store, Bookman’s Alley, situated in an old carriage house in Evanston, Illinois, was featured as a setting in Audrey Niffenegger’s best-selling 2003 novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife. Carlson opened the bookshop in 1979 and ran it until 2013, when declining health forced him to sell.
British scriptwriter Victor [Francis] Pemberton died in Spain on August 13, aged 85. Best known for his 1968 Doctor Who script ‘Fury from the Deep’, which introduced the Time Lord’s “sonic screwdriver”, he also wrote episodes of the children’s shows Timeslip and Ace of Wands, and the TV movies Tales from the Thousand and One Nights (1981) and the 1983 Edgar Wallace adaptation The Case of the Frightened Lady. Pemberton novelised his Doctor Who script.
British book editor and romantic novelist Diane [Margaret] Pearson died on August 15, aged 85. She began her career at Jonathan Cape Ltd. and was senior editor at Corgi/Transworld for thirty-eight years, where she first began publishing Terry Pratchett’s “Discworld” books in paperback.
American space artist Kim Poor died of complications from the neurodegenerative disease ataxia/Machado-Joseph on August 16, aged 65. His paintings appeared on the covers of such magazines as Analog, Asimov’s and Omni, and his work was also used in the TV series Babylon 5, Alien Nation and SeaQuest DSV. In 1982, Poor founded the International Association for Astronomical Artists with fellow artists Michael Carroll and Rick Stern-bach.
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