It’s always sad to learn that a beloved author has (after a long and fruitful life and career) passed away. What’s perhaps even sadder (from the viewpoints of both author and reader) is discovering that a promising author whose career was barely started has suddenly and irreversibly died. What might they have achieved had they survived? We’ll never know.
There are far too many examples one might draw upon, unfortunately. Despite frequent exhortations on my part to authors that they refrain from expiring, we’ve lost many great talents far too soon. The five authors who follow are but the tip of the iceberg.
Stanley G. Weinbaum (April 4, 1902–December 14, 1935)
While Weinbaum was not averse to moments of super-science and fantasy, many of his stories could be seen as early examples of what later was termed hard science fiction, or at least verisimilitudinous planetary romance. Weinbaum’s heavily populated Solar System featured an abundance of intelligent species. Most of them appear odd to human eyes, but when looked at from an evolutionary POV, were reasonable adaptations to their environments (as are we)1.
Less than a year after his 1934 short story “A Martian Odyssey” appeared on the pages of Wonder Stories, Weinbaum died of lung cancer, leaving a small but memorable body of work. Readers curious about his fiction could do no better than to track down a copy of 1974’s The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum.
Henry Kuttner (April 7, 1915–February 3, 1958)
Kuttner is an odd case, in that while his slick, often comic, solo work was skilled, his best material was written in collaboration with his wife, C. L. Moore. Really, one cannot consider the one without the other.2 Thanks to their writing habits, not to mention their carefree attitude re: bylines, it is difficult, perhaps impossible to sort out who wrote what with one hundred percent accuracy.
Kuttner died of a heart attack in 1958. We live in a golden age of reprints. Readers wishing to sample Kuttner for the first time have a wealth of options. For my money, I’d suggest starting with The Best of Henry Kuttner, then if enticed, plunking the big bucks to buy a used copy of the out-of-print but exemplary Two-Handed Engine.
C.M. Kornbluth (July 2, 1923–March 21, 19583)
Futurian and steadfast bitter misanthrope Cyril Kornbluth got his start young: 1939’s “The Rocket of 1955” appeared when Kornbluth was a teen.4 It was followed by a flurry of innovative, noteworthy fiction, some penned alone and others—such as Pohl-coauthored The Space Merchants—in collaboration. The quantity and quality of his work are impressive, particularly when one considers how young he was and the World-War-II-shaped hole in Kornbluth’s career.
Kornbluth succumbed to a fatal heart attack, the legacy of his wartime service. As counterintuitive as “a stroke of luck” sounds in the context of an author who died at thirty-four, Kornbluth or rather his legacy had one. Among his supporters and collaborators was noted author, editor, and agent Frederik Pohl. Pohl enjoyed a long career, which kept Pohl-Kornbluth collaborations in print. Kornbluth’s oeuvre appears to have benefited. If you’re curious about his collaborative work, try The Space Merchants. If it’s solo Kornbluth you crave, it is worth the effort to track down His Share of Glory: The Complete Short Science Fiction of C. M. Kornbluth. Tell NESFA Press I sent you!
Rosel George Brown (March 15, 1926–November 26, 1967)
Brown followed her September 1958 debut “From an Unseen Censor” with more than two dozen short stores, as well as two novels in the Sibyl Sue Blue series and a collaboration with Keith Laumer (who would later suffer a non-fatal but equally awful medical catastrophe). Her early work was impressive enough to make her a finalist for the 1959 Best New Author Hugo and her co-authored galactic adventure Earthblood was a Nebula finalist.
Nine years after her debut, Brown died of died of lymphoma. Readers curious about authors from Brown’s period are best advised to track down their short story collections, but both A Handful of Time (1963)5 and Earthblood and Other Stories (2008) with Keith Laumer appear to be out of print. Journey Press to the rescue! Their reprint of Sibyl Sue Blue is available from a variety of book-pushers.
Susan C. Petrey (7 April 1945–5 December 1980)
Petrey’s debut story was 1979’s “Spareen Among the Tartars.” It was the first of a series, focused on mundane vampires living on the Russian steppes, which would dominate her extremely short career. The Petrey stories that I’ve read have been impressive and I have no doubt she would have won numerous awards had she not died just over a year after her debut.
Petrey died from “a fatal error in judgment,” combining medications and alcohol. In the wake of her tragic death, the Susan C. Petrey Clarion Scholarship Fund was established; Petrey wanted to but was never able to attend Clarion herself. Unfortunately, Petrey’s sole collection, Gifts of Blood, is out of print but her posthumously Hugo-nominated “Spidersong”6 is available online here. I encourage you to read it.
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As stated above, “Authors who died too young” is an unfortunately large category, and five is only the very tip-top of a Brobdingnagian iceberg. Feel free to commemorate others in the comments below.
In the words of fanfiction author Musty181, four-time Hugo finalist, prolific book reviewer, and perennial Darwin Award nominee James Davis Nicoll “looks like a default mii with glasses.” His work has appeared in Interzone, Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times as well as on his own websites, James Nicoll Reviews (where he is assisted by editor Karen Lofstrom and web person Adrienne L. Travis) and the 2021 and 2022 Aurora Award finalist Young People Read Old SFF (where he is assisted by web person Adrienne L. Travis). His Patreon can be found here.
[1]On the plus side, Weinbaum rejected reflexive Lovecraftian xenophobia. Tweel is odd but he’s a good chum! On the other hand, Weinbaum was writing in the 1930s and his stories reflect the prejudices of the day. For example, in “Shifting Seas,” the deaths of a million-and-a-half Central Americans are a “remote tragedy, like the perishing of so many Chinese.”
[2]Moore’s F&SF career ended more or less about the time Kuttner died.
[3]Losing Kuttner and Kornbluth back-to-back like that would have been very traumatic for me as a young SF reader, were it not for the fact that I would not be born for another three years.
[4]My math says Kornbluth was sixteen, but I’ve seen claims he got started at fifteen. It may come down to whether or not a magazine dated August was actually published in August.
[5]I would link to my review of “A Handful of Time” but I have just now discovered that acquiring a book with the intention of reading and reviewing it is not the same as having actually read and reviewed it.
[6]Speaking of grim years in SF, consider 1981’s Hugo and Hugo-adjacent Awards. Two 1981 Hugo finalists, Petrey and Best Fan Writer Susan Woods became finalists posthumously. Of the six authors up for the Astounding Award, two (Petrey and Robert Stallman) were nominated posthumously. As far as I can tell, the Astounding Award had never before and has never since had even one posthumous finalist, let alone two.
I dearly miss Iain Banks probably more than any author I’ve known to pass away. I feel like there was so much more to explore in The Culture and his other writings.
Brian Daley, 1947-1996. His three Hobart Floyt/Alacrity Fitzhugh novels hit my Eighties space opera target dead center, and I wish he had written more. (Most of his output was media tie-ins, which I’m sure paid well and I’m sure he enjoyed, and many of which I read and liked, but I wish the balance had gone the other way.)
My not being able to read a new Company story is a very selfish reason to regret the loss of Kate Baker
H.P. Lovecraft
Robert E. Howard
I see Kage Baker mentioned already – what a loss! I’d love to see where she’d go with the Anvil of the World books. I’d add Jay Lake to this list, may he RIP.
Tom Reamy, 1935-77. Only one published novel (which may have not even been his intended final draft) and thirteen shorter stories, but the novel was on the final ballot for both the Hugo and Nebula and one of the stories won a Nebula and was on the Hugo final ballot. Won the Campbell for Best New Writer. Was generally considered one of the two major breakout new writers of the mid-70s along with the (very different) John Varley. Both the novel, Blind Voices, and the collection of his shorter work, San Diego Lightfoot Sue and Other Stories are very much worth hunting down although you may want to wait for next month (Feb. 2023). Per Locus upcoming books: “TOM REAMY • Under the Hollywood Sign: The Collected Stories of Tom Reamy • Subterranean Press, Feb 2023 (c, hc)” which I believe is supposed to include his one unpublished story which had been sold to Last Dangerous Visions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Reamy
Might as well add Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849) to the list.
Tom Reamy (1935 – 1977), publishing 13 stories and one novel (posthumously published). He won the John W. Campbell award for Best New Writer in 1976. Between 1975 and 1979, his work received two Hugo and three Nebula nominations.
Not as young as some on the list but Terry Pratchett’s appointment with Death came far too early.
@8. There’s a really lovely tribute and examination of Poe’s fascination with dying women as his muses on YouTube called “The Graves of Edgar AllenPoe.” It runs just over an hour, but it’s worth the watch.
https://youtu.be/iFXAs4sdoug
John “Mike” Ford. April 10, 1957 – September 25, 2006
I never met him in person, but we had an internet friendship and even worked on a project together once and I miss him tremendously. His works remain some of the finest things I have ever read.
If you have not, you owe it to yourself to read “The Dragon Waiting”
Or, for a tiny taste, Winter Solstice, Camelot Station
He doesn’t automatically spring to mind, but I’d like to note that Iain Banks was only 59 when the cancer got him. While that’s older than most of the authors James lists above, it’s very premature by modern standards—our ability to treat cancer and heart attacks has advanced tremendously since 1970.
William Hope Hodgson comes to mind – killed during WW1 aged 40.
I have a lot of Weinbaum’s SF on my web site since he’s mostly out of copyright in Europe. Not sure of the US situation.
https://www.forgottenfutures.com/game/ff11/index.htm
Omits some collaborations which are still in copyright due to the author living much longer. If anyone has a death date for his sister, Helen Weinbaum, I would be VERY grateful for the information, since she wrote much of the last planetary story after his death.
Roger Zelazny (May 13, 1937 – June 14, 1995) also died too soon.
Charles Beaumont (January 2, 1929 – February 21, 1967).
Robert Jordan
Janet Kagan (Hellspark, Uhuru’s Song) was 63 when COPD took her. That’s not terribly young, but I still think she had a lot more work in her.
Likewise Octavia Butler (the Patternmaster yarns, Parable of the Sower, Bloodchild, etc., etc.) made it to 58 but there’s no way she was done.
Cordwainer Smith.
I’ll add my vote for Kage Baker. More Company stories and would like to have more “Women of Nell Gwynne’s”.
Jo Clayton, at a mere 58 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo_Clayton)
@12: oh yes. It’s worth noting that Ford was more than halfway done the first draft of Aspects, which might have put even The Dragon Waiting in the shade; Tor recently published what was finished (not just draft but delivered to his editor), along with a set of sonnets that give some idea what the rest of the book would have been. Kornbluth in (IIRC) Pohl’s description was aware that his blood-pressure medication (very primitive that long ago) was dulling his edge; Ford had finally gotten a kidney transplant a few years ago and was still growing as a writer.
14: Marcus, a couple of genealogy sites, such as this one, say Helen Rose Kasson, formerly Weinbaum, Stanley’s sister, was born in 1906 and died in 1982. The FictionMags Index accepts this death date.
Her entry on Find A Grave suggests she died on 18 August 1982, having been born on 14 June 1906.
There’s a photo of her on page 81 of the December, 1938 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories. But that seems to me to be the sort of fact you’d already know.
If I have any sense, I will put this response in an e-mail message and send it to you.
@12/@22 — Complete agreement on John M. Ford — his was the first name to occur to me. Aspects is simply wonderful, and the fact he didn’t have time to finish it is deeply depressing.
Kathleen Duey was not all that young when she died (at 69, in 2020) but she had been very ill (early-onset Alzheimer’s, I believe) for several years and was in the agonizing position of still living and aware that she could no longer write. Her last two novels for older readers, Skin Hunger and Sacred Scars, were wonderful and I desperately miss not being able to read the conclusion to that series.
In the mystery field, Kate Ross wrote 4 enjoyable novels set just post-Regency about one Julian Kestrel, before dying aged only 41, in 1998.
And another great SF writer: James Blish was only 54 when he died in 1975. At his peak he was one of the most interesting and ambitious of SF writers.
@20: yep – I really miss Kage Baker.
Joan Samson (1937 – 1976), whose only novel, The Auctioneer, was released less than a year before her death. The novel was a New York Times bestseller and had been optioned for a movie, but disappeared from print shortly after Samson’s death. It became something of a cult classic, and is worthy of the hype, predating a lot of Stephen King’s works about a sinister newcomer corrupting and destroying a small New England town.
On Note #4: Those claims may also stem from counting to when the story had reached the final, sold, state and he no longer had any further influence on it.
Lighting a metaphorical candle for Octavia Butler and Kage Baker. Their loss hurts every day. While I miss Le Guin very much, I can’t say she didn’t live her full complement of years.
David Gemmell (1948 – 2006). He wrote a ton of books but he really should have lived longer. His books give the picture of a man who lived life fully and, anecdotally, his fans shared all sorts of stories about how he influenced them positively with that.
George Alec Effinger (Jan 10, 1947 – Apr 27, 2002) was 55, which isn’t that young, but his career ended far too soon
Huh.
I still have my original copies of The Dragon Waiting & San Diego Lightfoot Sue. I guess it’s time for another reread.
Such great writing.
Douglas Adams. Died at 49. Of an undiagnosed coronary artery disease.
@Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey: re #14 – thanks, that means she’ll still be in European copyright until the 2050s, which means I might as well forget any idea of adding this story to my site. Not a huge problem – it’s in some Weinbaum collections and on Gutenberg Australia, where the copyright laws are very different, so people should find it easily enough.
Sad to see the article didn’t include H. Beam Piper; disturbed that the comments don’t either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Beam_Piper took his own life under the mistaken perception that he was unsuccessful as a writer; his agent had died without notifying him of numerous sales.
Richard C. Meredith (1937-1979) should definitely be mentioned! Brilliant SF writer!
https://sfandfantasy.co.uk/php/rcm.php
Robert E. Howard. He had a lot more influence on fantasy then most realize. I always thought if he would have lived long enough to see how popular Conan and many of his other characters became, he might have not committed suicide. I don’t think he ever realized how good he was.
Melissa McPhail (1971-2022).
The depth of character and world building was truly special
I am another one who sorely misses Jay Lake, who died of colon cancer just a few days short of his 50th birthday. I grieve that I will read no more stories set in his Mainspring series, and even more that I will never read any of the novels he was working on for his new Sunspin space opera series. (The few short stories I was able to read online set in the Sunspin universe were great.) I also miss reading, disagreeing with and admiring his blog entries. RIP.
Bit sad that no-one has mentioned Douglas Adams yet (creator of The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) – he died young of a heart attack and never got to realise collaborations with Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, the makers of Dr Who, and more. He’s very sadly missed.
I second Janet Kagan. I loved everything she wrote, and was excited that she had sold, iirc, a trilogy to Tor, but died before they were written. I still reread Mirabile regularly
Unfortunately obscure, but Dr. Thomas Rainbow. He wrote humorous essays about the intersection of science and science fiction for Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, which unfortunately ended with (I think) a traffic accident.
ISFDB says he has one short story to his credit. And I suspect some early animated movies owe a lot to his essay “The Mad Scientist’s Primer”.
Yes Tom Rainbow’s essays were great – I remember avidly reading each one.