Black Gate

Richard Matheson, the legendary author of some of the most famous science fiction and horror novels of the 20th Century, died Sunday at the age of 87.

Matheson wrote over 25 novels and nearly 100 short stories, but is probably best known for his many works adapted into popular movies — including I Am Legend, The Shrinking Man, Hell House, Trilogy of Terror (based on three of his short stories), What Dreams May Come, Somewhere in Time (based on his novel Bid Time Return), A Stir of Echoes, and Real Steel (based on The Twilight Zone episode “Steel.”)

He also wrote one of the most famous episodes of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone, “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” which starred a young William Shatner. He adapted his 1971 short story “Duel” into the TV movie of the same name, launching the career of its young director, Steven Spielberg. Matheson later noted the story’s inspiration came from a trip he took with Star Trek author Jerry Sohl (“The Corbomite Maneuver”), when they were dangerously tailgated by a large truck.

Matheson was scheduled to be the Guest of Honor at the upcoming World Fantasy Convention in Brighton, England. The convention committee has announced that the convention will now be “dedicated to his memory and stand as a tribute to one of our genre’s greatest storytellers.”

As Matthew Wuertz wrote on the occasion of his 87th birthday in February:

Even if you haven’t read his stories, Matheson’s writing has undoubtedly influenced something you’ve read or watched. His work will leave a noticeable impact for many years to come. Perhaps he should reuse his novel’s title I Am Legend for an autobiography.

Matheson received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 1984, and the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1991. He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2010. He won the World Fantasy Award twice, for novel Bid Time Return (1975) and his collection Richard Matheson: Collected Stories (1989). Read his Entertainment Weekly obituary here.

Iain M. Banks, the Scottish novelist who — almost uniquely — created parallel careers as both a bestselling literary author and a top science fiction author, died yesterday at the age of 59, two months after announcing he had terminal gall bladder cancer.

Iain Banks burst onto the literary scene in 1984 with his first novel, The Wasp Factory. It was both a critical and commercial success, listed in 1997 as one of the top 100 books of the 20th century, and it allowed Banks to become a full-time writer.

I heard a great deal about The Wasp Factory when it was first published, but it was his first science fiction novel, Consider Phlebas (1987) that really brought him to my attention. It was the first volume of his popular The Culture series, a sequence of ten books set in a far future civilization run by intelligent machines. Consider Phlebas and the volumes that immediately followed — The Player of Games, The State of the Art, and Use of Weapons — were much read and discussed among my small circle of friends in Ottawa.

Banks published science fiction as “Iain M. Banks,” and literary fiction as “Iain Banks.” All told, he wrote a total of 26 novels; his most recent were The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks (Oct 9, 2012) and Stonemouth by Iain Banks, published one day later on Oct 10, 2012.

He won the British Science Fiction Association Award twice, in 1994 for Feersum Endjinn and 1996 for Excession. He was nominated for the Hugo Award in 2005 for The Algebraist.

His last novel, The Quarry by Iain Banks, is scheduled for publication later this month, on June 20.

Andrew J. Offutt, who authored many fantasy novels in the 70s and 80s, and who made a significant contribution to Sword and Sorcery as an editor with his seminal Swords Against Darkness anthology series, died yesterday.

Offutt wrote numerous novels under the name John Cleve (and other pseudonyms), including five volumes in the Crusader historical adventure line, and the long-running erotic SF adventure series Spaceways. The first science fiction novel to appear under his own name was Evil is Live Spelled Backwards in 1970.

But I first encountered him in Swords Against Darkness IV in 1979, a marvelous book which contains stories by Manly Wade Wellman, Orson Scott Card, Poul Anderson, Tanith Lee, and many others. The first Swords Against Darkness appeared in 1977 from Zebra Books, with a Robert E. Howard fragment completed by Offutt, a Simon of Gitta tale from Richard L. Tierney, and fiction from Poul Anderson, Manly Wade Wellman, David Drake, Ramsey Campbell and many others. Offutt edited a total of five volumes, with the final one appearing in 1979. Together with Lin Carter’s Flashing Swords anthologies and a handful of small press magazines like Weirdbook, Swords Against Darkness kept Sword & Sorcery alive throughout the 70s and into the early 80s.

Offutt went on to some success with collaborator Richard K. Lyons, beginning with the War of the Wizards trilogy (1978-81). He also wrote the War of the Gods on Earth trilogy (1979-83), but was mostly known for his Robert E. Howard pastiche novels featuring Conan and Cormac Mac Art, including The Undying Wizard (1976), The Mists of Doom (1977), and Conan and the Sorcerer (1978). He was a noted contributor to Thieves’ World, appearing in several volumes in the ’80s and ’90s.

Offutt had a long hiatus after his last Thieves World work appear in 1993. He returned briefly to the field in the last decade, contributing a short story co-authored with Richard K. Lyon for 2009’s Rage of the Behemoth from Rogue Blades Entertainment.

Altogether Offutt wrote and edited more than 75 books. He also contributed to the field in other ways, including two terms as president of SFWA, from 1976-78. He died yesterday at the age of 78.

It’s been a tough week for the genre. Science Fiction writer Iain M. Banks announced on Monday that he has terminal gall bladder cancer, both Eclipse Online and Night Shade Books packed it in on Thursday, and Roger Ebert died on Friday. And prolific English dark fantasy writer Basil Copper, a World Horror Grandmaster since 2010, also passed away Friday at the age of 89.

Basil Copper was born on February 5, 1924. His first short story, “The Curse,” was published when he was only 14; his first novel The Dark Mirror appeared in 1966. His is perhaps best known to genre fans for his popular Solar Pons stories, a character originally created by August Derleth as a tribute to Sherlock Holmes.

Copper wrote many detective books, including 58 novels featuring hard-boiled Los Angeles private detective Mike Faraday, but he is remembered today chiefly for his horror and dark fantasy work. His horror novels include The Great White Space (1974), Necropolis (1980), The House of the Wolf (1983), Into the Silence (1983), and The Black Death (1991).

He had a long-standing relationship with Arkham House, who published Necropolis and his short story collection From Evil’s Pillow — nominated for a World Fantasy Award in 1973 — and And Afterward, the Dark (1977).

For modern readers interested in trying some of his best work, I strongly recommend the 1999 Fedogan & Bremer collection Whispers in the Night, and the massive two-volume set Darkness, Mist and Shadow: The Collected Macabre Tales of Basil Copper, edited by Stephen Jones and published by PS Publishing in 2010.