Tor Books editor David G. Hartwell (b.1941) suffered a fall and subsequent brain injury January 19th and died January 20th, 2016.

Hartwell worked for numerous publishers over the years, including Signet, Berkley/Putnam, and Gregg Press.  While at Simon and Schuster in the early 1980s, he helped create the Timescape line before he wound up at Tor Books.

For several years, Hartwell edited a Best of Year SF and a Best of Year Fantasy collection for HarperCollins, the latter with his wife, Kathryn Cramer.  His other influential anthologies included The Ascent of Wonder, Space Opera Renaissance, Northern Stars and Northern Suns (Canadian science fiction) and Centaurus (Australian science fiction).

In his spare time, Hartwell published the New York Review of Science Fiction.  He was a three-time Hugo winner in the editor categories, twice won the World Fantasy Award, as well as other awards.  For many years he was the driving force behind the World Fantasy Convention.

Hartwell was also a collector with a massive collection of science fiction and fantasy books and magazines and an encyclopedic knowledge of the genre. In 2009, he was the editor Guest of Honor at Anticipation, that year’s Worldcon.

SFWA President, Cat Rambo adds, “I heard the news about David Hartwell’s accident last night; it makes me inexpressibly sad to see one of the people who have shaped the speculative fiction landscape for so long, pass.  He was definitely one of the influencers, and the publishing world will be changed by his passing.”