by Steven H Silver

Edwin Charles (E. C.) Tubb (b. 1919) died on September 10.  Tubb was born in London and began publishing in 1951 with the short story “No Short Cuts” in New Worlds.  He contributed heavily to the British SF magazines throughout the fifties, working as a full time writer, and in the 1960s he launched his Dumarest Saga, which has seen thirty-three volumes published during his lifetime with a rumored thirty-fourth in preparation for publication at the time of his death.  In the 1970s, Tubb began writing the Cap Kennedy series using the pseudonym Gregory Kern.  Both series were published in the United States by DAW Books.  Many of Tubb’s novels and stories were written using a variety of pseudonyms. By some accounts he used more than 40 different bylines, including Gill Hunt when writing with John Brunner and Dennis Hughes. Tubb wrote a series of six novelizations for the television show “Space: 1999” as well as several westerns.  In all, Tubb wrote more than 140 novels.  He was named one of the Guests of Honor at the 1970 Worldcon, Heicon, held in Heidelberg, Germany. Tubb was one of the co-founders of the British Science Fiction Association in 1958.