Shea, Robert Joseph 1933 1994 en 4 4285 Robert Joseph Shea (14 February 1933 - 10 March 1994) was the co-author of The Illuminatus! Trilogy with Robert Anton Wilson and the author of six other novels including Shike, All Things Are Lights, The Saracen, and Shaman. Robert Shea met Robert Anton Wilson in the late 1960s, when both were working in the editorial department of Playboy. Before long, they decided to collaborate on a novel that would combine sex, drugs, alternative religions, anarchism, and conspiracy theory, which became Illuminatus!. While they remained close friends for life, they had philosophical and political disagreements, and these enriched the book, helping to make it a dialogic novel in which no single point of view is privileged. On his own, Shea went on to write historical novels, including Shike (1981), All Things Are Lights (1986), and what probably is his most underrated work--The Saracen, a book published in two parts in 1989 depicting the struggle between a blond Muslim warrior called Daoud Ibn Abdullah and his French crusader adversary Simon De Gobignon. It's a book of love, intrigue, and suspense during the time of the Crusades. It is a book that avoids racial and religious stereotyping and is at times very sensual. His last book was the Native American tale Shaman (1991). Robert Joseph Shea attended Manhattan Prep, Manhattan College and Rutgers University and worked as a magazine editor in New York and Los Angeles. In the 60's he edited the Playboy Forum where he met Robert Anton Wilson, with whom he collaborated on Illuminatus! After publishing Illuminatus!, Bob left Playboy to become a full time novelist. His novels include: Shike, set in medieval Japan. All Things Are Lights, a story that entwines the fate of Cathars of southern France with the occult traditions of Courtly Love and the troubadours. The Saracen, describing the intricate politics of medieval Italy through the eyes of an Islamic warrior. Shaman, tracing the fate of the survivors of the Black Hawk War in 19th century Illinois. Lady Yang , a tragic story of an idealistic empress of medieval China. Robert Shea died of colon cancer in 10 March 1994 at the age of 61. Rick, Raphael 1919 1994 en 3 3972 Jones, Raymond Fisher 1915 1994 en 3 2494 Raymond F(isher) Jones (November 15, 1915, Salt Lake City, Utah - January 24, 1994, Sandy, Utah) was an American science fiction author. He is best known for his 1952 novel, This Island Earth, which was adapted into the 1955 film This Island Earth. Jones' career was at its peak during the 1940s, '50s, '60s and '70s. His stories were mostly published in magazines such as Thrilling Wonder Stories, Astounding Stories, and Galaxy. His short story Noise Level is known as one of his best works and is considered to be a classic of the genre. Source: Wikipedia Gallun, Raymond Z. 1911 1994 en 2 1987 Raymond Zinke Gallun (March 22, 1911 - April 2, 1994) was an early science fiction writer. Gallun (rhymes with "balloon") was born in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. He lived a drifter's existence, working a multitude of jobs around the world in the years leading up to World War II. He sold many popular stories to pulp magazines in the 1930s. "Old Faithful" (1934) was his first noted story. "The Gentle Brain" was published in "Science Fiction Quarterly" under the pseudonym Arthur Allport. Another of his pseudonyms was William Callahan. Long, Frank Belknap 1901 1994 en 3 1836 Frank Belknap Long (April 27, 1901 - January 3, 1994) was a prolific American writer of horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction, poetry, gothic romance, comic books, and non-fiction. Though his writing career spanned seven decades, he is best known for his horror and science fiction short stories, including early contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos. During his life, Long received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement (at the 1978 World Fantasy Convention), the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement (in 1987, from the Horror Writers Association), and the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award (1977). Frank Belknap Long was born in New York City in 1901, and grew up in the Harlem area of Manhattan. A lifelong resident of New York City, he was educated in the New York City public school system. As a boy he was fascinated by natural history, and wrote that he dreamed of running "away from home and explore the great rain forests of the Amazon." Though writing was to be his life's work, he once commented that as "important as writing is, I could have been completely happy if I had a secure position in a field that has always had a tremendous emotion an and imaginative appeal for me—that of natural history." In his late teens, he was active in the United Amateur Press Association (UAPA). Long's story "The Eye Above the Mantel" (1921) in UAPA caught the eye of H. P. Lovecraft, sparking a friendship and correspondence that would endure until Lovecraft's death in 1937. Long attended New York University from 1920 to 1921, studying journalism. In 1921, he suffered a severe attack of appendicitis, leading to a ruptured appendix and peritonitis. He spent a month in New York's Roosevelt Hospital, where he came close to dying. Long's brush with death propelled him into a decision that he would leave college to pursue a freelance writing career. In 1923, at the age of 22, he sold his first short story, "The Desert Lich", to Weird Tales magazine. Throughout the next four decades, Long was to be a frequent contributor to pulp magazines, including two of the most famous: Weird Tales (under editor Farnsworth Wright) and Astounding Science Fiction (under editor John W. Campbell). Long was an active freelance writer, also publishing many non-fiction articles. His first book, A Man from Genoa and Other Poems, was published in 1926. What Long characterized as a "minor disability" kept him out of World War II and writing full time during the early 1940s. During the 1950s, Long worked as an associate editor for Satellite Science Fiction, Short Story, and Mike Shayne's Mystery Magazine. He also wrote comic books, including horror stories for Adventures Into the Unknown (ACG), and scripts for Superman, DC's Golden Age Green Lantern, and the Fawcett Comics Captain Marvel. Ever versatile as a writer, Long changed with the times. After the decline of the pulps, he moved into writing science fiction and gothic romance novels (and even a Man from UNCLE tie-in novel, The Electronic Frankenstein Affair, under the pen name Robert Hart Davis). Long's gothic romance novels were written under the pseudonyms Lyda Belknap Long (his wife's name) and Leslie Northern. Long also published collections of his short stories (such as The Hounds of Tindalos and Night Fear) and poetry (including In Mayan Splendor), a biography of H. P. Lovecraft, Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Dreamer on the Nightside, and his own Autobiographical Memoir (Necronomicon Press, 1986). He married Lyda Arco in 1960. They stayed together till Long's death in 1994, but had no children. Long described himself as an "agnostic." Referring to Lovecraft, Long wrote that he "always shared HPL's skepticism . . . concerning the entire range of alleged supernatural occurrences and what is commonly defined as 'the occult.'" Long died on January 3, 1994 at the age of 92, survived by his wife, Lyda. He was buried in New York City's Woodlawn Cemetery. Despite a seven-decade career as a writer, he died impoverished; Long's fans contributed over $3000 to have his name engraved upon the tombstone of his family plot. Frank Belknap Long left behind a body of work that included twenty-five novels, 150 short stories, eight collections of short stories, three poetry collections, and numerous freelance magazine articles and comic book scripts. Author Ray Bradbury summed up Long's career: "Frank Belknap Long has lived through a major part of science fiction history in the U.S., has known most of the writers personally, or has corresponded with them, and has, with his own writing, helped shape the field when most of us were still in our early teens." Source: Perry M. Grayson Bloch, Robert 1917 1994 en 1 1814 Robert Albert Bloch (April 5, 1917, Chicago – September 23, 1994, Los Angeles) was a prolific American writer, primarily of crime, horror and science fiction. He was the son of Raphael "Ray" Bloch (born 1884, Chicago - died 1952, Chicago), a bank cashier, and his wife Stella Loeb (born 1880, Attica, Indiana - died 1944, Milwaukee, Wisconsin), a social worker, both of German-Jewish descent. Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over twenty novels, usually crime fiction, science fiction and, perhaps most influentially, horror fiction (Psycho). He was one of the youngest members of the Lovecraft Circle. H.P. Lovecraft was Bloch's mentor and one of the first to seriously encourage his talent. He was a contributor to pulp magazines such as Weird Tales in his early career, and was also a prolific screenwriter. He was the recipient of the Hugo Award (for his story "That Hell-Bound Train"), the Bram Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy Award. He served a term as president of the Mystery Writers of America. Robert Bloch was also a major contributor to science fiction fanzines and fandom in general. In the 1940s, he created the humorous character Lefty Feep in a story for Fantastic Adventures. He also worked for a time in local vaudeville and tried to break into writing for nationally-known performers. He was a good friend of the science fiction writer Stanley G. Weinbaum. In the 1960's, he wrote 3 stories for Star Trek. Source: Wikipedia Thompson, Don 1935 1994 en 1 192