Obituaries

Author John Maddox Roberts, 76, died May 23, 2024 in Estancia NM.

Roberts was born in Ohio on June 25, 1947. He began publishing with SF novel The Strayed Sheep of Charun (1977; revised as Cestus Dei, 1983). Other works include the Spacer series, with Space Angel (1979) and Spacer: Window of the Mind (1988); the Cingulum sequence, with The Cingulum (1985), Cloak of Illusion (1985), and The Sword, ...Read More

Artist, author, and musician MaryAnn Harris, 71, died June 3, 2024 after a long struggle with the Powassan virus. Harris was married to author Charles de Lint and was his frequent collaborator as manager, editor, and illustrator.

Harris was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She met de Lint in 1974, and they married in 1980. She served as de Lint’s business manager and first editor, and created the cover art ...Read More

CAITLIN THOMAS, 21, died April 17, 2024 in Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago IL. She had Aicardi Syndrome, a rare congenital disorder.

Born October 28, 2002, Caitlin was the daugh­ter of editors Lynne Marie Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas of Uncanny, and was a familiar and beloved figure at conventions and events.

Michael wrote, “Caitlin was the best of all of us – the most pure, loving, fun, and ...Read More

R.F. LUCCHETTI, 94, the dean of Brazilian pulp writers, died March 5, 2024 of respiratory failure following a stroke in Ribeirão Preto, in the Brazilian state of São Paulo.

Rubens Francisco Lucchetti was born January 29, 1930 in Santa Rita do Passa Quatro. He left his mark on the fields of horror cinema, comics and literature, crime fiction, pulp radio shows, cultural journalism, science fiction, and the book market ...Read More

Author Travis Heerman, 54, died April 26, 2024 in Colorado. He suffered severe head trauma in a motorcycle accident in December 2023, and finally succumbed to his injuries.

Heerman was born October 22, 1969. He was a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop, with more than 30 stories published in magazines and anthologies. He was the author of the Ronin Trilogy: Heart of the Ronin (2009), Sword of the Ronin ...Read More

Fan John Trimble, 87, died April 19, 2024. He was the husband of Bjo Trimble and very active in Los Angeles fandom.

Trimble was born November 17, 1936, and married Bjo in 1960. They had three daughters, Kathryn Arwen, Lora, and Jenn. He was a member and officer of the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society and many other fan organizations, and was a founder of the Trans Oceanic Fan Fund. ...Read More

Author Paul Auster, 77, died April 30, 2024 of lung cancer at home in Brooklyn NY. Auster wrote more than 30 books, inluding literary novels and non-fiction, and occasionally incorporated surreal and genre elements in his fiction.

Paul Benjamin Auster was born February 3, 1947 in Newark NJ. He attended Columbia University, graduating with bachelor’s and master’s degrees before moving to Paris in 1970, where he worked as a translator. ...Read More

Author Ray Garton, 61, died April 21, 2024, just weeks after being diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. Garton was the author of nearly 70 books, most horror.

Ray Garton, Jr. was born December 2, 1962 in Redding CA, and grew up in Anderson CA with his adopted parents. He worked at Pinnacle Books in New York City in the 1980s.

Garton’s debut novel, Seductions, appeared in 1984. Other ...Read More

Artist, editor, and author Trina Robbins, 85, died April 10, 2024 of a stroke in San Francisco CA. Though best known as a legendary feminist comics writer and artist, she was also a science fiction fan and occasional SF writer, with stories including “Lines from a Diary” (1992) and “Innana: Witchwoman” (2011). She wrote and illustrated a comics adaptation of Tanith Lee’s The Silver Metal Lover in 1985, and was ...Read More

Author John Barth, 93, died April 2, 2024 at a hospice in Bonita Springs FL. Barth was famed for his (often hilarious) experimental fiction.

His debut The Floating Opera appeared in 1956, but he attained literary fame with his third novel, The Sot-Weed Factor (1960). His innovations occasionally led him into speculative territory, notably in Giles Goat-Boy (1966) and The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor (1991). His 1967 essay ...Read More

Author Sharon Green, 79, died February 17, 2022 in Old Bridge NJ.

Green’s first publications were the Jalav/Amazon Warrior series, starting with Crystals of Mida (1982) and continuing with An Oath to Mida (1983), Chosen of Mida (1984), The Will of the Gods (1985), and To Battle the Gods (1986). The Terrilian Sequence began with The Warrior Within (1982) and includes The Warrior Enchained (1983), The Warrior Rearmed (1984), The ...Read More

Author Kirk Dougal, 57, died March 18, 2024 in a Fort Wayne IN hospital of cancer.  

His Fallen Angel series includes Dreams of Ivory and Gold (2014) and Valleys of the Earth (2017). His epic fantasy Legacy of Bones (2020) launched series A Tale of Bone & Steel, which also includes Black Shadow Rising (2020), Wings of the Storm (2020), Joiner of Bones (2020), Dragonkiller (2021), Path of Shadows (2021), ...Read More

Convention organizer and editor Deb Geisler, 66, died March 23, 2024. She was in home hospice care with lung and heart disease. Geisler was best known for her work running Boston-area conventions, including a Worldcon.

Deborah M. Geisler was born September 20, 1957 in Dayton OH. She attended Ohio University, where she earned bachelor and master’s degrees, and got her PhD at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. She taught communication and journalism ...Read More

Author James A. Moore, 58, died March 27, 2024. Moore was an award-winning author of more than 50 fantasy and horror titles.

James Arthur Moore was born September 3, 1965 in Atlanta GA. He began publishing work of genre interest with House of Secrets (1995, with Kevin Andrew Murphy), and his first solo novel was Hell-Storm (1996). Other notable books include Under the Overtree (2000), Fireworks (2001), Bram Stoker Award ...Read More

Publisher and author Sue Arroyo, 57, died on February 26, 2024 after falling at home in Brentwood TN.

Arroyo was born July 2, 1966 in New York, and worked as a software engineer before founding her own company, Trident Technologies, in 2006. She sold her stake in the company in 2019 to focus on publishing. Arroyo was founder and CEO of small press CamCat Books, launched in 2018. The press ...Read More

Artist Dick Jenssen, 88, also known in fandom as Ditmar, died March 7, 2024. Jensen was active in Australian fandom for many years, and was a prolific fan and cover artist. Australia’s annual achievement awards, the Ditmars, are named after him. He won the 2016 Rotsler Award for his artwork in fanzines.

Martin James Ditmar Jenssen was born in 1935, and was a part of Australian fandom since 1952, when ...Read More

Jaime Lee Moyer was discovered deceased on February 29, 2024, apparently of natural causes.

Her friends C.C. Finlay & Rae Carson organized a wellness check with the East Lansing MI police after failing to hear from Moyer for more than ten days, and officers found her deceased at home.

Moyer was from Fremont CA, and attended Ohlone College before moving to Texas, where she studied at Mt. San Antonio College. ...Read More

Author, academic, critic, editor, and translator Brian Stableford, 75, died February 24, 2024 after a long illness. He was married twice and is survived by his son Leo and daughter Katy.

Brian Michael Stableford was born July 25, 1948 in Shipley, Yorkshire, England. He attended the University of York, getting a degree in biology, followed by a doctorate in sociology; his doctoral thesis was The Sociology of Science Fiction. ...Read More

Author Steve Miller, 73, best known for the Liaden Universe series co-written with wife Sharon Lee, died suddenly on February 20, 2024, as reported by Lee on Facebook.

Steven Richard Miller was born July 31, 1950 in Baltimore MD. He attended the University of Maryland, where he worked on college newpaper The Retriever and founded the science fiction club. He was the curator of the UMBC Albin O. Kuhn Library ...Read More

Author, editor, and scholar Christopher Priest, 80, died of cancer February 2, 2024, in Rothesay on the Isle of Bute in Scotland. He was a major figure in the SF field, famed for his ambitious fiction and erudite criticism and non-fiction.

Christopher Mackenzie Priest was born in Cheadle, Cheshire, England on July 14, 1943. Priest was married to author Lisa Tuttle from 1981-87, and to writer Leigh Kennedy from 1988-2011. ...Read More

Horror writer Brian Lumley, 86, died January 2, 2024. Lumley was best known for his Mythos fiction, and for the bestselling Necroscope series.

Lumley was born December 2, 1937 in County Durham in England, and served in the military police in the British Army for 22 years before retiring in 1980 to write full time.

He published his first story in the late ‘60s, and became known in the ‘70s ...Read More

Author Howard Waldrop, 77, died January 14, 2024. Waldrop was one of our most accomplished and celebrated authors of short fiction, known for his erudite, playful, and allusive work. His most famous story, “The Ugly Chickens” (1980), won World Fantasy and Nebula Awards, and was a Hugo Award finalist.

Waldrop’s first work of genre interest was “Lunchbox” in Analog (1972), and he went on to publish scores of stories, including ...Read More

SF writer Tom Purdom, 87, died January 14, 2024.

Thomas Edward Purdom was born April 19, 1936 in New Haven CT, and lived in Philadelphia PA with his wife, Sara Wescoat Purdom. He began publishing SF with “Grief for a Man” (1957), and debut novel I Want the Stars appeared in 1964. Other books include The Tree Lord of Imeten (1966), Five Against Arlane (1967), Reduction in Arms (1971), and ...Read More

Author and critic David J. Skal, 71, died January 1, 2024 in a car accident in Los Angeles CA.

David John Skal was born June 21, 1952 in Garfield Heights OH. He attended Ohio University, where he studied journalism and worked as a film critic and editor on the college newspaper, graduating in 1974. He later worked in theater, including with the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco and the ...Read More

Author and scholar Fred Chappell, 87, died January 5, 2024 in Greensboro NC. Chapell was an author of literary and weird fiction, best known in the field for his 1968 novel Dagon and for World Fantasy Award-winning stories “The Somewhere Doors ” (1991) and The Lodger (1993).

Fred Davis Chappell was born May 28, 1936 in Canton NC and attended Duke University. He spent 40 years as an English professor ...Read More

Swedish author and translator BERTIL FALK, 90, died October 14, 2023 after a long illness.

I have never known anyone with so much energy as author-publisher-reporter-translator-SF-expert-etc. Bertil Falk. Now this hurricane of a force is no longer with us. His Swedish translationof James Joyce’s ‘‘untranslatable’’ Finnegans Wake came out last year, a work of love taking 60-plus years. We also saw his massive, three-volume history of science fiction in ...Read More

Author David Drake, 78, died December 10, 2023 in Silk Hope NC. Drake was the author of more than 80 works of SF and fantasy, best known for the Hammer’s Slammer’s series and other works of military SF.

David Allen Drake was born September 24, 1945 in Dubuque IA. He attended law school at Duke, but his studies were interrupted when he was drafted into the US Army, serving in ...Read More

Writer D.G. Compton, 93, died November 10, 2023 in Maine. David Guy Compton was born in London on August 19, 1930, later settling in the US.

His agents at the Virginia Kidd Agency sent the following tribute.

We had the great pleasure of having David visit us in Milford for the Black Bear Film Festival the year Death Watch, the 1979 Bertrand Tavernier film based on his book, The ...Read More