We are deeply saddened to report the passing of author Vonda N. McIntyre on April 1, 2019.
McIntyre was born in Louisville, Kentucky on August 28, 1948, but her family settled in Seattle, Washington by the 1960s. She was an author and founder of the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop in 1971, which she began after attending the Clarion Writers Workshop in 1970. McIntyre was the third woman to receive a Hugo Award, and was a long-standing champion of feminist SFF. She won her first Nebula Award for the novelette “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand”, and her Starfarers series had an incredible genesis: She made up the conceit on the spot while sitting on a panel at a convention, out of frustration at the general negativity she found around SF television. She convinced the entire audience of the panel that they had missed out on a great science fiction series, and then decided to write it.
To many SFF fans, McIntyre was well known for her Star Trek novels, which included novelizations for films Wrath of Khan, Search For Spock, and The Voyage Home, as well as the much beloved Original Series novel, The Entropy Effect. She was responsible for giving Hikaru Sulu his first name, a detail that made its way into canon in The Undiscovered Country. She also wrote the Star Wars Expanded Universe novel, The Crystal Star. She won SFWA’s Service Award in 2010, and her novel The Moon and Sun was adapted to film under the title of The King’s Daughter.
McIntyre believed in learning to write through experimentation, and was a great proponent of writers giving themselves the freedom to try new things:
Something that worries me about some of the writers’ workshops I’ve seen recently is that people go in there with this relentlessly professional attitude, when they should be experimenting. When I think of all the different weird stuff we wrote at the Clarion Workshop in 1970, I think there’s still people who go to workshops to do that, but I also think there’s a contingent that goes there to be relentlessly professional, and I wish they wouldn’t do it.
Vonda McIntyre died at home in Seattle, Washington of pancreatic cancer. She was writing up to the end, completing a novel titled Curve of the World shortly before her passing. Her neighbor and friend Jane Hawkins noted her drive, saying, “All her docs know she has a book she wants to finish. Even the doc she hadn’t seen before!”
She will be dearly missed.
Oh I am sorry!
Dreamsnake. </3
Oh, I loved her books and stories. My favorite short story was “Aztecs”, later expanded into the novel Superluminal. And Dreamsnake was a beautifully expanded version of the novella mentioned here, “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand”.
Another giant has fallen.
Sigh. Her novelization of The Search For Spock was the first Star Trek novel (possibly the first media tie-in) I ever read way, way back in the day.
RIP Vonda! Her novelisations were my introduction to Star Trek – long before I got to see it on TV or as a movie – and I was blown away by her attention to detail and diversity. I then tracked down her other works and was never disappointed!
Vonda was one of the first ‘authors’ I met back in the late 60’s. we were both members of a Seattle based SF group called ‘The Nameless Ones’. I always enjoyed talking with her and seeing the world through her eyes.
Oh.
My deepest condolences to her family.
Few people could have claimed to have shaped SFF the way she did. It is hard to understate her impact on the genre, and impossible to overstate it. We’re all a little poorer without her.
The Crystal Star is perhaps the weirdest piece of Expanded Universe material. It’s got bizarre multidimensional entities, private mini-planets, improbable physics, all along with the usual Republic and Empire antics. Perhaps I enjoyed it so much because of that and how it stands out compared to some the other generic novels that were aping Zahn and Stackpole.
Rest in peace, Vonda McIntyre
I’m sad to hear that, I always enjoyed her writing. I went back and listened to Starfarers last year, she had some interesting ideas about changes in society.
That’s sad news. Her books were an important part of my teenage years. Dreamsnake was probably my first SF novel with a female protagonist, Mischa from The Exile Waiting may have been the first female math genius I met, and The Entropy Effect was the first Star Trek novel I liked as much as the TV show.
Dreamsnake is a novel Ursula Le Guin read over and over again! So have I. And Barbary is still one of the books I give to girls in their tweens to get them interested in SF–a feminist version of a Heinlein juvenile. I also love The Moon and the Sun. Vonda McIntyre gave us books that will last. I am sad to hear of her death, but glad that we have a new novel of hers to look forward to.
I will sorely miss her. She’s been one of my most favorite authors.
I met Vonda thru her sister, Carolyn McIntyre. When Carolyn was dying of pancreatic cancer, Vonda was there next to me over many hours. Her grieving was deep. I told her that Carolyn had lent me many of her books and that I loved them. “What should I do with them after Carolyn passes?” I asked. “Keep them.” she said. I did not know that that would be the last time I saw her. I hope that they both now have access to all of the mysteries. Fly high McIntyre sisters!