We at Tor.com are deeply saddened to report the passing of Gardner Dozois on May 27, 2018.
Dozois was an author and editor whose career spanned fifty years, and shaped contemporary science fiction and fantasy. Born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1947, Dozois later said he began reading science fiction and fantasy as an escape from life in his small town. After a stint as an Army journalist, he moved to New York, and had his first major publication when Frederik Pohl chose one of his stories for If in 1966.
He was the founding editor of The Year’s Best Science Fiction anthologies, as well as editor of Asimov’s from 1984 until 2004. His editorial work earned more than 40 Hugo Awards, 40 Nebula Awards, and 30 Locus Awards, and he was awarded the Hugo for Best Professional Editor fifteen times between 1988 and his retirement from Asimov’s in 2004. In 1977, Dozois authored an in-depth look at the fiction of James Tiptree, Jr., and a solo novel, Strangers, was published in 1978. Two of his stories, “The Peacemaker” and “Morning Child”, won the Nebula Award for Short Story in 1983 and 1984, respectively. In 2001, Old Earth Books published Being Gardner Dozois: An Interview by Michael Swanwick, in which Dozois and his friend and collaborator Michael Swanwick discussed his entire career in fiction. The book was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Related Book.
Throughout the 2000s, Dozois collaborated with George R.R. Martin on a series of themed anthologies, including Songs of the Dying Earth, a tribute anthology to Jack Vance’s Dying Earth series, Old Mars, an anthology featuring retro stories about Mars, Dangerous Women, whose stories revolve around female warriors, and Rogues, a genre-spanning anthology starring a variety of rogues. Dozois was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2011.
Of course these are all just facts. The more important truth is that Gardner Dozois was a vital and beloved member of the science fiction and fantasy community. We will share more tributes to him in coming days. His contribution to our community cannot be overstated, and he will be greatly missed.
Top image: Photograph of Gardner Dozois at ClarionWest in 1998 by Ellen Levy Finch, CC BY-SA 3.0
