American photo-artist James [Allen] Bearcloud (aka “Jim Thomas”), whose work appeared on the cover of Cinefantastique and inside such magazines as Amazing Stories and Asimov’s, died after a long illness on April 15, aged 58.
American fan and author Margaret J. Howes, a member of the Rivendell Group of the Mythopoeic Society since its inception in the early 1970s, died the same day, aged 80. Her stories appeared in The Tolkien Scrapbook, she was one of five writers who contributed to the collaborative novel Autumn World, and her SF novel The Wrong World was published in 2000.
British author Michael de Larrabeiti died of cancer on April 18, aged 73. The author of the acclaimed YA dark fantasy trilogy, The Borribles (1976), The Borribles Go for Broke and The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis, his 1989 collection Provençal Tales was a retelling of historical French fables and folk stories.
American TV scriptwriter, producer and showrunner Larry (Lawrence) Hertzog died of cancer on April 19, aged 56. His credits include SeaQuest DSV, Nowhere Man, and Painkiller Jane. He also scripted the TV pilot movie Tin Men and came up with the original story for Darkman II: The Return of Durant. Hertzog wrote his own (amusing) biography on IMDb.
Pioneering electronic music composer Bebe Barron [Charlotte May Wind], who created the electronic tonalities for the 1956 movie Forbidden Planet with her first husband Louis, died on April 20, aged 82. Her music was also used (uncredited) in Doomsday Machine (aka Escape from Planet Earth).
British-born electronic music composer Tristram Cary, who worked on a number of Doctor Who episodes in the mid-1960s, died in Adelaide, Australia, on April 24, aged 82. Instrumental in the invention of the synthesizer, his other music credits include Hammer’s Quatermass and the Pit and Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb, along with the BBC-TV show Late Night Horror and Richard Williams’ animated TV version of A Christmas Carol (1971).
British TV scriptwriter and novelist Donald James [Wheal] died on April 28, aged 76. His credits include episodes of The Avengers, The Saint, The Champions, Joe 90, Department S, The Secret Service, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), UFO, Jason King and Space: 1999, and he also co-scripted the movie Doppelgànger (aka Journey to the Far Side of the Sun).
American illustrator John Berkey died after a long illness on April 29, aged 75. A prolific freelance artist, he created more than 3,000 commissioned paintings, including work for most the major SF publishers, pre-production artwork for Star Wars and publicity material for The Neptune Factor, The Towering Inferno, Star Trek, the 1976 remake of King Kong and numerous other movies. Some of his work is collected in John Berkey: Painted Space and The Art of John Berkey.
Danton Burroughs, the grandson of Edgar Rice Burroughs and son of illustrator John Coleman Burroughs, died of a heart attack in the California suburb of Tarzana on April 30, aged 64. He suffered from Parkinson’s disease. Danton Burroughs was chairman of the board of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. and publisher of the weekly online fanzine ERBzine. On the morning of his death, a fire destroyed much of his historical archive of papers and photographs.
Emmy Award-winning American composer and photographer Alexander Courage [Alexander Mair Courage, Jr] died on May 15, aged 88. He had been in declining health since 2005. Not only did he compose the memorable USS Enterprise theme for the original Star Trek TV series (reprised in Star Trek: The Next Generation and the movies), but also the score for Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and episodes of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space and Land of the Giants. As an orchestrator, Courage also worked on many classic 1950s musicals, plus Doctor Dolittle (1967), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Island of Dr Moreau (1977), Baby – Secret of the Lost Legend, Legend, Gremlins 2 The New Batch, Hook, Basic Instinct, Mom and Dad Save the World, Matinee, Jurassic Park, The Shadow, Powder, Deep Rising, Small Soldiers, The Mummy (1999), The 13th Warrior, The Haunting (1999) and Hollow Man.
Mad magazine artist Will Elder died the same day from Parkinson’s disease, aged 86.
Rory D. Root, the co-founder and long-time sole proprietor of Comic Relief: The Comic Bookstore in Berkley, California, died of complications from hernia surgery on May 19, aged 50.
Humorous fantasy and SF writer Robert [Lynn] Asprin died on May 22, aged 61. His early SF novels included The Cold Cash War, Cold Cash Warrior, The Bug Wars and Tambu, but it was with Another Fine Myth . . . (1978) that his career took off. It led to a series of nearly twenty books, many co-written with Jody Lynn Nye. He also wrote the humorous “Phule” series (mostly in collaboration with Peter J. Heck), starting with Phule’s Company in 1990, and the “Time Scout” series (with Linda Evans), beginning with Time Scout in 1995. Other collaborations include Catwoman and Catwoman: Tiger Hunt (with Lynn Abbey), License Invoked (with Jody Lynn Nye), For King and Country (with Linda Evans), E. Godz (with Esther M. Friesner) and Resurrection and Oblivion (with Eric del Carlo). His solo 2008 novel Dragons Wild was followed by Dragon’s Luck. Asprin also created the Thieves World shared universe, co-editing a dozen anthologies from 1979–89 with his then-wife Lynn Abbey.
Emmy Award-winning American TV composer and orchestrator Earle H. (Harry) Hagen died after a long illness on May 26, aged 88. He composed the theme for I Spy, as well as music for the Planet of the Apes TV series.
Graphic artist Alton Kelley died after a long illness on June 1, aged 67. During the 1960s he designed iconic psychedelic rock posters of Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, Country Joe and the Fish and others.
British film historian and collector John [Stuart Lloyd] Barnes died the same day, aged 87. He wrote the five-volume study The Beginnings of the Cinema in England, 1894–1901.
Pulp magazine fan Edward S. Kessell died on June 4. A teacher and theatrical director, he ran the dealers’ room at the 1969 World Science Fiction Convention in St Louis and in 1972 co-founded the first Pulpcon in the same city.
Role-playing game designer and co-founder of gaming publisher Palladium Books, Erick Wujcik died of pancreatic cancer on June 7, aged 57. Among the RPGs he created was the Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game based on Roger Zelazny’s universe.
Respected German-born Lithuanian SF author, editor, reviewer and teacher Algis Budrys (Algirdas Jonas Budrys, aka “AJ”) died in Illinois of metastatic malignant melanoma on June 9, aged 77. Although he only wrote a small number of novels (several Hugo-nominated), including False Night (aka Some Will Not Die), Man of Earth, Who? (filmed in 1974), The Falling Torch, Rogue Moon (aka The Death Machine), The Amsirs and the Iron Thorn (aka The Iron Thorne), Michaelmas and Hard Landing, his short fiction appeared (often under various pseudonyms) in Astounding, Galaxy, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Amazing, Analog, The Saturday Evening Post and Playboy, and was collected in The Unexpected Dimension, Budrys’ Inferno (aka The Furious Future), Blood and Burning, and Entertainment. Budrys worked in various editorial capacities for Gnome Press, Science Fiction Adventures, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Galaxy, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Awards (1984–92), editing a number of the Writers of the Future anthologies. He was Guest of Honor at the 1997 World Science Fiction Convention in Texas.
Bulgaria’s most famous SF writer, Lyuben Dilov, died on June 10, aged 80. His more than thirty-five books include The Atomic Man, The Many Names of Fear, The Way of Icarus, Cruel Experiment and the collections My Strange Friend the Astronomer and To Feed the Eagle.
Sixty-one-year-old American horror writer James [Martin] Kisner died on June 26 from carbon monoxide poisoning probably caused by a faulty power generator. His wife Phyllis also died. Between 1981–94, Kisner wrote eleven novels for such imprints as Leisure, Pinnacle and Zebra: Nero’s Vice, Slice of Life, Strands, Night Glow, Zombie House, Poison Pen, Earthblood, The Quagmire, The Forever Children and Night Blood (both published under the pen-name “Eric Flanders”), and Tower of Evil. His short fiction appeared in the anthologies Masques II and III, Scare Care, Urban Horrors, Hotter Blood: More Tales of Erotic Horror, Predators, Vampire Detectives and V
ampire Slayers: Stories of Those Who Dare to Take Back the Night.
American comics artist Michael Turner, who co-created Witch-blade for Top Cow Productions, died of complications from bone cancer on June 27, aged 37. He created the covers for such titles as DC Comic’s Superman/Batman, The Flash and Justice League, along with Civil War and the special 500th issue of Uncanny X-Men for Marvel. He also produced online comics for the NBC-TV series Heroes and published his own titles, including the bestselling Fathom, under the Aspen MLT imprint.
Fan historian Jack [Bristol] Speer, a member of First Fandom, died on June 28, aged 87. He published the first history of fandom, Up to Now, in 1939, and his original dictionary of fan speech, Fancyclopedia, appeared in 1944. A book of essays, Fancestral Voices, was published in conjunction with his appearance as Fan Guest of Honor at the 2004 World Science Fiction Convention in Boston. Speer is credited by some with inspiring masquerade fandom at the 1940 Worldcon in Chicago, and he was the last surviving member of the Fantasy Amateur Press Association (FAPA).
Estonian-born German editor and collector Kalju Kirde (Kalju Frisch) died of Alzheimer’s disease and kidney problems on June 29, aged 79. From 1969–79 he edited the influential “Bibliothek des Hauses Usher” series for publishers Insel, which introduced works by H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, William Hope Hodgson, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood and H. R. Wakefield to German readers. He also edited the anthologies Das unsichtbare Auge and In Laurins Blick.
Miniaturist, publisher, poet and author William Buchan, the 3rd Baron Tweedsmuir and second son of The Thirty-Nine Steps author John Buchan, died the same day, aged 92. Schooled at Eton, where he shared newspaper-reading breakfasts with provost M. R. James, he later worked as an assistant to Alfred Hitchcock and had an affair with actress Peggy Ashcroft. His short fiction was collected in The Exclusives (1943) and from 1951–54 he was the London editor of Reader’s Digest.
Television composer and arranger David Kahn, whose best-known work included the themes for Leave it to Beaver and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, died on July 3, aged 98. After singing and touring with the big band leaders of the 1930s, Kahn ended up at Filmways Television, where he created incidental music for such shows as Mr Ed and The Beverly Hillbillies. With composer Vic Mizzy he also sang on the theme song for The Addams Family.
Acclaimed and often controversial SF and horror writer, poet, editor, playwright and critic Thomas M. (Michael) Disch died in his New York apartment from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on July 3 or 4. He was 68. One of the most important American SF writers from the “New Wave”, his novels include The Genocides (1965), Mankind Under the Leash (aka The Puppies of Terra), Echo Round His Bones, Camp Concentration, 334, On Wings of Song, The Businessman: A Tale of Terror, The MD: A Horror Story, The Priest: A Gothic Romance, The Sub: A Study in Witchcraft and The Word of God: or, Holy Writ Rewritten. He collaborated twice with John Sladek, on the novels The House That Fear Built (as “Cassandra Kaye”) and Black Alice (as “Thom Demijohn”), while the Gothic Clara Reeve was published under the pseudonym “Leonie Hargrave”. Disch’s short fiction is collected in One Hundred and Two H-Bombs and Other Funny SF Stories, Under Compulsion (aka Fun with Your New Head), Getting Into Death, The Fundamental Disch, The Man Who Had No Idea and The Wall of America. His satirical SF fable “The Brave Little Toaster” was filmed without irony in 1987 by Walt Disney, and he reportedly worked on an early treatment of The Lion King for the studio. He also wrote the tie-in books for TV’s The Prisoner and the movie Alfred the Great (as “Victor Hastings”). Disch won the O. Henry Prize in 1975 and 1977, and was involved in founding the Philip K. Dick Award.
Golden Age comics artist Creig [Valentine] Flessel, who illustrated the original Sandman from 1939 onward, died July 17, aged 96. He had suffered a stroke six days earlier. Flessel also contributed work to More Fun Comics, the pre-Batman Detective Comics, and Superboy, and he created the character “Shining Knight” for Adventure Comics.
Harriet Burns, who in 1955 was the first woman hired by Walt Disney in a creative capacity, died on July 25, aged 79. She helped design and build prototypes for the Disneyland attractions The Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Enchanted Tiki Room and Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. She was named a Disney Legend in 2000.
Young adult fantasy writer Donald [Bruce] Callander died of complications from diabetes on July 26, aged 78. A former travel writer and photographer, his first novel, Pyromancer, was published in 1992. He followed it with Aquamancer, Geomancer, Aeromancer and Mableheart. His other books include Dragon Companion and its sequels, Dragon Rescue and Dragon Tempest, Warlock’s Bar and Grill and the posthumously published Teddybear Teddybear.
American scriptwriter Luther [Berryhill] Davis, who won two Tony Awards for co-writing the book of the 1953 Broadway musical Kismit, died on July 29, aged 91. He scripted Lady in a Cage (which he also produced) and the TV movies Arsenic and Old Lace (1969) and Daughter of the Mind.
British children’s illustrator Pauline Baynes, best known for her illustrations for C. S. Lewis’ “Chronicles of Narnia” series, died August 1, aged 85. In 1948, J. R. R. Tolkien asked her to illustrate Farmer Giles of Ham, and she went on to illustrate Tolkien’s The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Tree and Leaf, Smith and Wootton Major and Bilbo’s Last Song. She began illustrating Lewis’ “Narnia” chronicles with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in 1950, and other books she illustrated included a 1957 edition of The Arabian Nights, The Puffin Book of Nursery Rhymes, Spider and Snail, The Enchanted Horse, The Story of Daniel, and A Book of Narnians. A winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal in 1968 for her work on Grant Uden’s A Dictionary of Chivalry, Baynes also wrote and illustrated a number of her own children’s books.
American SF writer and teacher George W. (Wyatt) Proctor died after a sudden illness on August 3 while on vacation in Florida. He was 61. The author of such novels as The Esper Transfer, Shadow-men, Fire at the Center, Starwings, Stellar Fist and the nine-volume “Swords of Raemllyn” series (with Robert E. Vardeman), Proctor also co-edited the anthologies Lone Star Universe: The First Anthology of Texas Science Fiction Authors (with Steven Utley) and The Science Fiction Hall of Fame Vol III: Nebula Winners 1965–1969 (with Arthur C. Clarke). As an author of Westerns, he wrote under the pen-names “Zach Wyatt”, “Clay Tanner” and “John Cleve” (with Andrew J. Offut).
Famed EC Comics artist Jack Kamen died of cancer on August 5, aged 88. After World War II interrupted his career as a pulp magazine artist, he joined EC, drawing for the line’s horror, crime, suspense, SF, humour and even romance titles, where he was renowned for his depictions of attractive women. He later worked in advertising, and illustrated the EC-inspired poster for the 1982 George A. Romero/Stephen King movie Creepshow.
Fifty-nine-year-old Robert Hazard (Robert Rimato), who wrote the 1983 Cyndi Lauper hit “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and toured in the 1980s with his band Robert Hazard and the Heroes, died the same day, following surgery.
Michael Silberkleit, chairman of Archie Comic Publications, died of cancer on August 5, aged 76.
Former editor-in-chief of publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Robert Giroux, died on September 5, aged 94.
Star Trek fan Joan Winston, who organized the very first Star Trek convention in January 1972, died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease on September 11, aged 77. She also edited the Star Trek fanzine Number One, co-wrote Star Trek Lives (with Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Sondra Marshak) and was the author of The Making of the Trek Conventions.
Acclaimed American author and journalist David Foster Wallace, once described as “the voice of Generation X”, hanged himself on September 12. He was 46 and had been suffering from depression for many years. Wallace published two novels, The Broom of the System and Infinite Jest, the latter set in the near future and revolving around a short film that had the power to debilitate its viewers. The book ran to 1,079 pages and had more than 100 pages of footnotes. His short fiction was collected in Girl with Curious Hair,
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and Oblivion: Stories.
Award-winning Motown songwriter and producer Norman [Jesse] Whitfield died of complications from diabetes on September 16, aged 67. He composed such songs as “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” for Gladys Knight & The Pips, “Too Busy Thinking About My Baby” for Marvin Gaye and “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” for The Temptations.
Editor and author Brian M. (Michael) Thomsen died of a heart attack on September 21, aged 49. A founding editor at Warner Books/Questar in the 1980s, he went on to work for role-playing imprint TSR and later became a consulting editor at Tor Books. He had around thirty stories published in various anthologies, and was the author of the “Forgotten Realms” tie-in novels Once Around the Realms and The Mage in the Iron Mask. As an editor, Thomsen’s own anthologies included Halflings Hobbits Warrows and Weefolk (with Baird Seales), Furry Fantastic (with Jean Rabe), Masters of Fantasy (with Bill Fawcett), Novel Ideas: Fantasy, Novel Ideas: Science Fiction and the World Fantasy Award-nominated The American Fantasy Tradition. He also helped veteran editor Julius Schwartz to write his 2000 autobiography Man of Two Worlds: My Life in Science Fiction and Comics.
American SF author James P. (Peter) Killus died of a rare form of cancer on September 23, aged 58. He published two SF novels, Book of Shadows and Sunsmoke, and his short stories appeared in Twilight Zone Magazine, Realms of Fantasy, Asomov’s and other magazines.
TV scriptwriter Oliver [Kaufman] Crawford died of complications from pneumonia on September 24, aged 91. Blacklisted during the Communist witch-hunts of the 1950s, his career successfully recovered and his credits include episodes of Terry and the Pirates, The Outer Limits, Tarzan, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Star Trek, The Wild Wild West, Land of the Giants and The Bionic Woman.
British historical novelist Peter Vansittart OBE died on October 4, aged 88. His first of more than forty books was the SF novel, I Am the World (1942), and he also wrote the children’s collections of folk stories, The Dark Tower and The Shadow Land.
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