Allan Cole, international best-selling author, screenwriter and former prize-winning newsman, died March 29, 2019, of cancer in Boca Raton, FL. He was 75. Cole was probably best known for the Sten science fiction series, which he co-authored with his late partner Chris Bunch, as well as the critically acclaimed Vietnam novel “A Reckoning for Kings” […]
SFWA Grand Master Gene Wolfe (b.1931) died on April 14. Wolfe is widely considered to be one of science fiction and fantasy’s greatest stylists, writing complex and intelligent novels and short stories, while letting his wry wit show through. After service in the Korean War, Wolfe earned a degree and became the senior editor of […]
Nebula Award winning author Vonda N. McIntyre (b.1948) died on April 1. McIntyre began publishing in 1970 with the short story “Breaking Point,” which appeared in the February issue of Venture. In 1974, McIntyre short story “Wings” appeared on both the Nebula and the Hugo ballot. That same year, her novelette “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand” also […]
Author and screenwriter Russell L. Bates (b.1941) died on April 9, 2018. Bates attended Clarion in 1973, by which time he had already published the short stories “Legion,” “Get with the Program,” and “A Modest Proposal.” Bates also sold the story “ Search Cycle: Beginning and Ending 1. The Last Quest; 2. Fifth and Last Horseman” to […]
Janet Asimov (b. Janet O. Jeppson, 1926) died on February 25. Along with writing, Jeppson has had a long and successful career as a psychiatrist, publishing numerous scientific articles under the name Janet O. Jeppson, and serving as a popular science columnist for the L.A. Times. Her first story was published in The Saint Mystery Magazine […]
by John Walters
I have been reading a dynamic new book called The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America From 1890 to the Present, and I thought about my Native American friend Russell Bates and wondered what he might think of the book. I hadn’t been in touch with him since I moved back to the States from Greece, so I ran a search to see if I might find a recent email address or Facebook page where I could re-contact him.That’s when I came across his obituary. It said that he died on April 19, 2018, after a brief illness. He was seventy-six years old.
Betty Ballantine (b. Elizabeth Jones, 1919) died on February 12. Ballantine introduced paperbacks to the United States and co-founded Bantam Books in 1945 with her husband Ian. Later on, the publishing company launched the Ballantine Adult Fantasy line and then started the imprint, Del Rey for science fiction and fantasy in 1977. In 1953, Ballantine […]
Author Carol Emshwiller (b.Carol Fries, April 12, 1921) died on February 2nd, 2019. Ms. Emshwiller began publishing science fiction in 1954, with the story “Built for Pleasure.” Emshwiller built a reputation as a short fiction author and Ursula Le Guin said that she had “one of the strongest, most complex, most consistently feminist voices in fiction.” […]
K.C. Ball suffered a fatal heart attack on August 26. Ball attended the Clarion West Writers Workshop in 2010 and Launch Pad in 2011. She served as the publisher and editor of 10Flash Quarterly, an on-line flash fiction magazine. She also won the Speculative Literature Foundation Older Writer Award. In 2012, her short fiction appeared in the collection […]
Grand Master Harlan Ellison (b.1934) died on June 28, 2018. Ellison began his professional career in 1956 with the publication of the short story “Glowworm” in Infinity Science Fiction. Prior to that time, he was active in science fiction fandom. During the mid 1950s, Ellison lived in New York and produced a prodigious amount of short fiction […]
The second volume in the Aurora Award-winning and World Fantasy Award-nominated Year’s Best Canadian Fantasy and Science Fiction series offers readers the essential collection of
outstanding works by Canadians from the past year.
Harold R. Thompson’s first science fiction novel, Orphans of Sturnus, was released in 2024. He is also the author of many science fiction and fantasy short stories. He lives in Nova Scotia and, when not writing, works for Parks Canada.
