Yesterday I learned that Gardner Dozois had been hospitalized for a massive infection. Before I left the house today I checked Facebook and other sources to see if there was any news. When I checked again an hour ago, I was devastated to learn that he had passed away.

While he was a fiction writer of considerable note, Gardner made his true reputation as an editor. I first took notice of his name when he took over the editorial reins at my favorite fiction magazine, Asimov’s Science Fiction, in 1985. During his 17-year tenure he won the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor 15 times, from 1988 until he retired in 2004. While I was in grad school I faithfully read his annual Year’s Best Science Fiction volumes, starting with the sixth in 1989. The Thirty-Fifth volume will be published by St. Martin’s Press on July 3. He’s published nearly a hundred other anthologies, including some of my favorites, including The Good Old Stuff, Modern Classics of Fantasy, and The New Space Opera, edited with Jonathan Strahan.

As Gardner’s Year’s Best volumes got larger and larger (surpassing 800 pages by 2002) so too did his Annual Summations, a critical look at the year in science fiction books, art, movies and culture. They were required reading for anyone who wanted to keep up with the field, especially in the pre-internet era. In many ways Gardner Dozois was the living, breathing, heart of science fiction, the passionate spokesman, champion, writer and dealmaker who was known both for his depth of knowledge and his impeccable taste.

{Click the images to embiggen.]

The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection, coming July 3, 2018

I didn’t know Gardner well personally. I got to know him when I designed the first website for Asimov’s Science Fiction way back in the early 90s, and I was surprised and pleased to see a blurb from one of my SF Site reviews show up on the back of one of his Year’s Best volumes. We exchanged the occasional Facebook message, and he kindly reached out last year to ask if I wanted to review his latest anthology, The Book of Swords. But I don’t feel really qualified to comment on the depth of his contributions to the field.

Fortunately, I have many friends who knew him more intimately than I. For the last few hours my Facebook feed has been overrun with tributes. I’ve gathered a few excerpts to share with you here.

Andy Duncan

Gardner Dozois died today, a terrible loss to science fiction, and to many of us personally. He plucked me from the Asimov’s slush pile in January 1995 and from the start treated me, not as a first-time author with a lot to learn, but as a valued colleague whose arrival he had anticipated for years, filling an Andy Duncan-shaped hole in the field that he somehow knew existed, but hadn’t been able to name. For decades, his unflagging encouragement of my work helped keep me going. I was not unique in this. He did the same for hundreds of other writers. A first-rate short-fiction writer himself, he was arguably the most influential short-fiction editor in the history of science fiction — to my mind, his only rivals in that category are Ellen Datlow and John W. Campbell Jr. — but he also was one of the funniest, kindest, wisest people in this or any other field. We all were lucky to have him blaze brilliantly through our lives.

Rich Horton

He was one of the greatest editors in the field’s history (an argument can be made (and I’ve made it) that he ranks at the top); and he was also a very significant SF writer. His writing should not be forgotten — stories like “Strangers,” “A Special Kind of Morning,” “A Dream at Noonday,” “The Visible Man,” “Horse of Air,” “A Kingdom by the Sea,” “The Peacemaker,” “Morning Child,” “A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows” and many others are exceptionally written, imaginatively powerful, very moving — truly an oeuvre, at shorter lengths, to stand with the best writers of his generation.

He was also, of course, a very prominent anthologist, particularly well known for his very long running Best of the Year series. As such (and in many other ways), he was an important influence on me, and indeed something of a mentor. He was generous in treating me as an equal (I was not), and in happily discussing the state of the field with me at the drop of a hat. He was one of those in the field I can call a friend, and I’m proud to have known him.

Jonathan Strahan

I am devastated to hear that my colleague, friend, and one of the true greats of our field, Gardner Dozois, has died. He was smart, funny, caring and had a love of our field that I’ve only seen a few times. His short fiction was outstanding and you should read it if you haven’t. We’ll not see his like again. It was my privilege to work with him on several anthologies and to edit him at Locus for a decade. This is sad, sad news.
In many ways, this was where I first met Gardner. Not in person — that wouldn’t come for another decade or more — but in the pages of The Year’s Best Science Fiction. It shaped what I do to this day. I read every volume, studied the notes he wrote, and was entranced by his view of SF. I met him again shortly thereafter in the pages of Light Years and Dark, which published two of his finest stories, and then for years in Asimov’s. He was remarkable.

Piet Nel

Gardner Dozois, editor of distinction, pillar of the science fiction community, has died, aged 70.

Not only did he assemble several shelves of monumental, definitive anthologies, but he will be remembered as a party animal and raconteur of note.

This must be remembered above all: that although he wasn’t prolific, he was an award winning writer in his own right. Sometimes he kept us waiting for years for his next short story, but when they came, they were seldom disappointing.

Gardner’s writing was by turns hauntingly beautiful…  Gardner will be with us on the printed page, as long as there are books. Real books, not screens.

What’s that you say? You haven’t read “Morning Child”? Then you know what to do.

Scott Edelman

Sitting at Balticon, crying over Gardner Dozois, who passed a few hours ago. I have nothing coherent to share, only tears. I have no words.

Matthew Hughes

Michael Swanwick has posted news that Gardner Dozois has died from an infection after being hospitalized for a minor illness. I am saddened to hear of it. All the superlatives apply: giant in the field, played a unique role, top of the pyramid.

Paula Guran

So sorry to hear that Gardner Dozois has died. A rare talent who was not only a great editor, but a good writer. It was a honor to work on his collection When the Great Days Come. A superb anthologist and as for being a “year’s best editor” and knowledgeable about the field — he was the best. He’s inspired a lot of people, including me. One of those people who, despite ill health, you just sorta expected to go on forever.

John Kessel

Writer and editor Gardner Dozois has died. What a terrible loss. It’s going to take me a while to get my head around it. Only a week ago he received the Solstice Award at the Nebula conference for his contributions to the field of science fiction and fantasy, and I sat talking about him with his son Christopher Casper and Michael Swanwick.

His achievements in the genre as an editor are huge, and I can’t possibly do them justice here, but I hope people will not forget how fine a writer he was. When I came into the sf world in the late 1960s, Gardner was making a name for himself as one of the brilliant young writers who were shaking up the genre, people like George R.R. Martin, George Alec Effinger, Jack Dann, Joe Haldeman, and a half dozen others. In a podcast I did last year I talked about how open and accepting his was to me as a newcomer: he (with Jack) was the first writer of his generation — only a few years older than I — who treated me like an equal, even though it would be years before I started publishing my own stories.

He was generous, astute, thoughtful, open hearted, and could be hilariously funny. His loss leaves a big hole in the world that, for those who knew him, nobody is going to be able to fill.

Vera Nazarian

Sad news, according to various reports, Gardner Dozois, fabled science fiction editor (including the critically acclaimed Year’s Best anthologies), author and all around great member of the SF field, has died today in the hospital after a rapid decline due to a general infection. I’ve known Gardner for decades and this is truly the end of an era…

Gardner’s unique sense of humor will always stay with me, together with his brave ability to poke fun at himself, and his warm-hearted generosity to every SF convention newbie and long-time pro alike. Missing him profoundly.

Brett Cox

Deeply saddened to hear that Gardner Dozois has died. I didn’t know him as well as many of my friends did, but I knew him well enough–and, well, hell, you couldn’t be active in the sf community without knowing Gardner. His achievements as a writer remain undervalued; his impact as an editor cannot be overvalued. My deepest condolences to his family and his many, many friends.

Lou Anders

Gardner Dozois has left us. A blazing brilliant light in genre has gone out.

Todd Mason

Gardner Dozois, editor and writer, died this afternoon in hospital after a brief illness. He was 70 years old.

He was already an accomplished young writer when he began his first high-profile editorial gig, succeeding Lester Del Rey as the editor of the E. P. Dutton hardcover annual The Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year, the 1977 sixth volume, and continuing to edit that series for five volumes, through 1981, some reissued in paperback. He began editing his current series of best of the year volumes, for Bluejay Books/St. Martins beginning with a volume for 1984; the 35th volume is scheduled for publication in July. In late 1985, he also took on the editorship of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, continuing till 2004; his former assistant, Sheila Williams, has been editing the magazine in the years since. He has also edited notable series of anthologies with Jack Dann, George R. R. Martin and others.

He was a consistently gregarious presence at conventions, and has been among the key editors in the field throughout his career. His wife, writer Susan Casper, died last year; though we both lived in Philadelphia, I had not yet met Dozois, but attended her funeral. I didn’t choose to intrude on him at that time, though I was able to speak with fellow attendees I did know such as Ellen Datlow and Scott Edelman… His death was unexpected, and he will be missed by readers and writers who have never met him as well as his family and many good friends.

Our previous coverage of Gardner’s many books and articles includes:

The Book of Swords
A Book That Makes You Yearn to be Stranded on a Desert Island: Modern Classics of Fantasy
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Second Annual Collection
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Third Annual Collection
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fourth Annual Collection
Gardner Dozois on the New Sword & Sorcery
Worldmakers and Supermen
Explorers and The Furthest Horizon
The Good Stuff
Multiverse: Exploring the Worlds of Poul Anderson, edited by Greg Bear and Gardner Dozois
Gardner Dozois on the 2013 Hugo Nominations

Gardner also produced a number of massive best-selling anthologies co-edited with George R.R. Martin. They include:

Old Venus
Old Mars
Rogues
Warriors, reviewed by Jason M. Waltz

Gardner’s output has not slowed, despite serious health issues over the past few years (and a lengthy stay in the hospital last year, and the death of his wife, Susan Casper). Still to come this year are two major works: The Year’s Best Science-Fiction: Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection (July 3) and The Book of Magic (October 16, 2018).

 

Dozois was born July 23, 1947 in Salem, Massachusetts. He sold his first short story, “The Empty Man,” to Frederik Pohl, it appeared in the September 1966 issue of If. In the 1970s he took a number of editorial positions with magazines such as Galaxy Science Fiction, If, Worlds of Fantasy, and Worlds of Tomorrow. He won the Nebula Award for best short story for “The Peacemaker” in 1983, and for “Morning Child” in 1984. His collections include The Visible Man (1977), Geodesic Dreams (1992), Slow Dancing through Time (1990), and When the Great Days Come (2011). Michael Swanwick posted this brief announcement on Twitter and Facebook this afternoon.

It is my sad duty to note the passing of Gardner Dozois today, Sunday May 27, at 4:00 p.m. The cause was an overwhelming systemic infection. Gardner had been hospitalized for a minor illness and was expected to be released shortly. The decline was swift. He died surrounded by his family.

Gardner Dozois was 70 years old.