The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Sixth Annual Collection

Obituaries

Each year marks the physical death of a number of those gifted people who create fantasy and horror in lierature and other media. In 1992 one of the most durable and important fantasists died. Fritz Leiber, 81, was a true giant of the field. It is difficult to gauge accurately the full scope of his influence upon other writers, but a list of his own writing, which would take up more space than we may devote to it, is impressive not only for its size, but also for the breadth of his range of styles and creative direction. He wrote fantasy and horror of many sorts, including his well-known Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories. These were typical of his work in that they can be read as exciting sword-and-sorcery, but Leiber’s trenchant wit and sure sense of both the absurd and the tragic make these readable on deeper levels than most sword and sorcery.

He won many awards in fantasy, horror, and science fiction, including seven Hugos and four Nebulas, and was honored as a Grand Master in Science Fiction and for Life Achievement in fantasy. He wrote numerous seminal works in all three fields, including Conjure Wife, a brilliant novel of modern witchcraft, Our Lady of Darkness, urban dark fantasy or horror, depending on your critical stance, The Big Time, science fiction that reads more like existential fantasy, The Wanderer, SF that really was a great “disaster” novel, and a number of other works, long and short, of lasting beauty and modern sensibility.

His story, The Girl with the Hungry Eyes,” is a classic vampirism story, well ahead of its time; this is just a single example among many pieces that explored themes and were innovative in style and technique. Perhaps a reason for the lack of greater critical acclaim for Leiber's work lies in the ease and natural storytelling manner of his fiction. While Leiber was certainly a conscious artist, he didn’t make the reader notice his craft, preferring to be unobtrusively artful, letting the story come through without drawing attention to the author.

Fritz Leiber was a cat person, and put cats into his fiction, perhaps most spectacularly in The Green Millennium (1952). That novel also contained more sexual excitement than did the works of virtually any other SF or fantasy writer of that time. Sex has caught up with the rest of the field long since, but Leiber was ahead of his time in this as well.

Leiber wasn’t as commercially successful as the best of his peers, but none of them was more brilliantly gifted or creative. Born into a theatrical family, he was at one time an actor himself, and until his death remained a formidable stage presence whenever called upon to read publicly. He will be missed, but as is true with those who create art, his legacy is a gift to all future generations.

William M. Gaines, 70, was publisher of Mad magazine. In 1947 he inherited the EC comics line and transformed it from Educational to Entertaining, breaking new ground in the graphic format, publishing a wide range of titles, from Tales from the Crypt to Weird Science Fiction. When in 1954 Dr. Frederic Wertham published his anticomics tract, Seduction of the Innocent, which asserted that comics like Gaines’s corrupted youth, turning kids into juvenile delinquents, Gaines, after a series of U.S. Senate hearings, was forced to drop virtually all of the comics. The one exception was the satire, Mad. He turned it into a magazine, and it quickly became nothing less than the most popular and culturally influential magazine for adolescents (and many adults as well), as it still is today. Nothing was or is safe from the wicked pens of Mad’s “usual gang of idiots” (their staff artists and writers). It remains an American institution.

Angela Carter, 51, was a writer whose sharp, graceful prose and keenly insightful writing infused her plays, poetry, and fiction with an uncommon edge. She was known for her sense of the unusual in life, and her fantasy works included The War of Dreams, The Passion of New Eve, the screenplay of The Company of Wolves, and other works.

Not a writer of fantasy, but certainly influential to a generation of writers of the fantastic was Isaac Asimov, 72, who wrote hundreds of books and was widely known because of his incredible range of subject matter from fiction to nonfiction in dozens of fields. His first love, however, was science fiction, in which he was a Grand Master and won many awards. He also was involved with the magazine that bears his name, Asimov’s Science Fiction. While there have been other magazines named for people, none is quite like this one. Until his death he continued to write the editorials, answer reader mail, and be actively involved. He was a writer completely obsessed with writing. He was famous for writing every single day, even on vacations. His Foundation trilogy was for many years the most popular SF series by far. When he wrote the fourth book, Foundation’s Edge, years later, it became an instant bestseller, taking mere months to outsell the previous three volumes, which had taken decades to reach their audience. After that, Asimov was a consistent best-seller on national lists, though his work had passed its peak. He remained one of the bestselling SF authors until his death. An unassuming man who never claimed to be a great writer, Asimov was a firm believer in the essential goodness of mankind, and his works, imbued with that belief, inspired and encouraged several generations of readers.

Hal Roach, 100, was a filmmaker who began in the silent era and continued to make a variety of films, mostly comedies, for at least four decades. His studio was the starting point for many gifted comic talents, and his work encompassed fantasy as well as realistic works. Certainly the Little Rascals were fantasy! Another filmmaker died, Jack Arnold, 75, a director who was known for a number of low-budget horror and science fiction films, including It Came from Outer Space, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and many others. Actor Robert Morley, 84, was known for his droll, witty performances in numerous films and on stage. Anthony Perkins, 60, didn’t deserve to be remembered only as the mad killer, Norman Bates, in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film, Psycho, but that success followed him for decades after he created the role. Before and after that film he was a character actor who played a variety of roles in dozens of films. Perhaps his other most memorable role was as major league baseball player Jim Piersall, in the biographical film, Fear Strikes Out.

Children’s book author and artist James Marshall, 49, whose inspired work included such hilarious and affirming works as The Stupids books and the Miss Viola Swamp books, among many others. He worked a lot with Harry Allard. He was a bright light of silliness in the juvenile universe. Mary Norton, 88, was a well-known and well-loved children’s book author. She wrote the “Borrowers” series, which became enormously popular as books and also as films. Another well-known work of hers was The Magic Bed-Knob, which was adapted for film as Bedknobs and Broomsticks. Alvin Schwartz, 64, was the author of many successful children’s books, including Ghosts, and his Scary Stories series.

R.(eginald) Bretnor, 80, was a writer of fantasy, science fiction, humor, essays— but perhaps best known for his short pieces, many published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, featuring Ferdinand Feghoot. These appeared under the pseudonym Grendel Briarton, and was absolutely, irredeemably punnish. His other series, the Schimmelhorn stories, was also quite charming. He also wrote several novels, but never became as famous as his skills would have suggested.

Rosemary Sutcliff, 71, was a highly regarded British historical novelist, and author of the acclaimed Arthurian classic Sword at Sunset.

Michael Talbot, 38, was a talented fantasy and horror writer who in his short career wrote some very effective and creepy novels, including The Delicate Dependency, The Bog, and Night Things.

A number of people connected with publishing died in 1992, including Samuel Walker, 65, the founder and publisher of Walker Publishing, which has published a fair number of good science fiction and fantasy works, despite never having a terribly large budget; Sidney Meredith, 73, the brother of literary agent Scott Meredith and the vice president and treasurer of their famous agency; antiquarian bookseller Eric Kramer, 58, who had an enormous number of hard-to-find books in his Manhattan-based Fantasy Archives; Jack Tannen, 84, who was a bookseller and later the publisher of Canaveral Press. He published, with the editorial directorship of Richard A. Lupofif, a number of Edgar Rice Burroughs works. He also published Lupoff s biography of Burroughs; and Roberta Bender Grossman, 46, co-founder and publisher of Zebra Books.

Many other writers died in 1992. Millea Kenin, 49, was a writer published in many anthologies and magazines, in addition to being a designer, poet, and editor; Barbara Comyns, 83, was the distinguished author of a number of Magic Realist novels, including The Vet’s Daughter and The Juniper Tree; Richard Bums, 33, was the author of the fantasy novel Khalindaine and its sequel Troubador, as well as other works in the mainstream; M. F. K. Fisher, 83, noted essayist and author of the fantasy novel Not Now, But Now; and Edouard Roditi, 81, essayist, poet, and translator associated with the surrealists.

Joe Schuster, 78, was the co-creator, along with Jerry Siegel, of Superman. Martin Goodman, 84, was the founder and longtime publisher of Marvel Comics. Dwight V. Swain, 76, was an early fantasy and science fiction writer who started out in the pulps. Many latter-day writers were influenced by his vigorous work.

Artist Joseph Magnaini, 79, was a great artist who did the classic covers of Ray Bradbury’s work for many years, among many other fine pieces. He was also a filmmaker. Francis Bacon, 82, was a controversial artist whose distorted, macabre images of the human body were inspiring to generations of fantasy and horror artists. Anton Furst, 47, a special effects and production designer whose most famous work was on the design of the film Batman; Robert Peak, 64, was a celebrated illustrator who was a giant in the field of movie-poster art. Among his best known fantasy posters was the one he painted for John Boorman’s Excalibur.

Many creative people connected with fantasy and horror in the media died in 1992. Actors who left the scene included Klaus Kinski, 65, who was known for his dark, effective portrayals in a number of fantastic films; he appeared with his daughter, actress Nastassia Kinski, in Cat People; Denholm Elliott, 70, was a versatile, distinguished stage and screen actor whose credits included television productions of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Dracula, as well as many other diverse roles; Paul Henreid, 84, was a fine actor of many films, including his memorable turn in Casablanca; Oesare Danova, 66, was a character actor in a number of productions over many years; Mae Clarke, 81, co-starred in Frankenstein with Boris Karloff, and appeared in many other films; Morris Carnov-sky, 94, was a stage actor and appeared in films, including Siren of Atlantis, before being blacklisted. He resumed his career in the 1970s; actor/director Ray Danton, 60, was a character actor in many films and television projects. He also directed a number of low-budget projects, including Psychic Killer; Dick York, 63, was best known as the co-star of the TV series Bewitched. He also acted in numerous other television shows; Cleavon Little, 53, was in a number of films and television shows, including the film Once Bitten. He’s best remembered for his memorable role in Blazing Saddles; Neville Brand, 71, was known as a bad guy in the movies. A much-decorated World War II hero, he was in dozens of films, mostly the target for the good guys’ fists; Jack Kelly, 65, was well known to television viewers. He also appeared in a number of films, including Forbidden Planet and Cult of the Cobra; Arletty, 94, was a French actress featured in, among other films, Les Enfants du Paradise; Malcolm Aterbury, 85, was in I Was A Teenage Werewolf, and many other films and television shows; British character actor Tutte Lemkow, 73, appeared in numerous films and television productions, including Raiders of the Lost Ark and Theatre of Blood; character actor Ian Wolfe, 95, appeared in numerous films, mostly in sinister roles, including ones in The Raven and The Return of Dr. X; Paul Maxwell, 70, was featured in many films, including Blood of Dracula. He also did much voice work; Barbara Morrison, 84, starred in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and other films; Marshall Thompson, 66, starred in the classic chiller Fiend Without a Face, and appeared in many film and television productions for many years; Brian Oulton, 84, starred in the 1963 horror film Kiss of the Vampire, and appeared in many other productions; Georgia Brown, 56, a British singer and actress, was best known for her stage performance in Oliver! She appeared in the film A Study in Terror, and other films. John Anderson, 69, was a character actor for many years. He was in Psycho, and played parts in hundreds of television shows.

A number of screenwriters also died. Edmund Beloin, 82, wrote the screenplay for Visit to a Small Planet, based on the original play by Gore Vidal; Robert Kaufman, 60, was the screenwriter of, among other films, Love at First Bite; Frederic Rinaldo, 78, was a screenwriter who penned, among other films, Hold that Ghost.

Behind the camera, many others died this year. Satyajit Ray, 70, was best known for Pather Panchali. He was India's foremost filmmaker; Hans Koenkamp, 100, was a cameraman for Mack Sennett in the silent era, and became a special-effects man, working on The Wizard of Oz, among other films; producer George Edwards, 67, made Frogs and other low-budget fantasy-horror films; Puppeteer Richard Hunt, 40, was best known for his work on The Muppet Show; set designer Ruby Levitt, 84, created the Addams Family television series sets. She was an Academy Award nominee for some of her film work; film editor Arthur Milford, 89, won an Academy Award for editing Frank Capra’s production of Lost Horizon; Howard Christie, 79, was a prolific producer for Universal Studios in the 1950s. He was responsible for a number of Abbott and Costello films; Anna Johnstone, 79, a costume designer for stage and film productions for over forty years, created the costumes for the Broadway production of Bell, Book and Candle, and many other productions, including the film The Wtz; Disney animator Jack Kinney, 82, contributed to many of Disney’s classic cartoons; Albert Taveres, 39, was a stage and screen casting director, performing that duty for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. He also cast the original off-Broadway production of Little Shop of Horrors.

All these people contributed in their own ways to bring us the gift of entertainment and, in the case of many, edification. Their work lives on.