boyajian@akov68.DEC (JERRY BOYAJIAN) (03/22/86)
> From: mtgzy!ecl (Evelyn C. Leeper) > WONDER'S CHILD won the Hugo as Best Non-Fiction Book of 1984. > Some of that might have been due to an urge to honor someone who > may very well be science fiction's oldest living author (I can think > of no living science fiction author published before Williamson)... Certainly an interesting point to consider. I started wondering if that was true, so I wrote up a list of other sf authors who I thought might be in the running for that distinction. I then went through Reginald's SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY LITERATURE [VOLUME 2: AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES] (1979) looking for relevant data, also keeping an eye out for other big names that I might have forgotten. Of course, there are at least two variables to consider here: (1) Was the author in question born before Williamson? and (2) Was the author published before Williamson? There was another point to consider as well: should I include those authors who, while having published *some* sf/fantasy, are primarily mainstream authors (eg. Isaac Bashevis Singer)? I decided no. Purists should note that I consider "sf" to include all forms of fantastic literature. In any case, even where the authors in question primarily write horror or supernatural fantasy, they have written a goodly amount of "real" science fiction. My final list looked like this, ordered by birth date (I list those born before 1910): Birth Date First SF Publication (1) E. Hoffmann Price 3 Jul 1898 1925 Jan (Weird Tales) * (2) Curt Siodmak 10 Aug 1902 1926 Jul (Amazing) ** (3) Frank Belknap Long 27 Apr 1903 1924 Nov (Weird Tales) (4) Manly Wade Wellman 21 May 1903 1927 Nov (Weird Tales) (5) Clifford Simak 3 Aug 1904 1931 Dec (Wonder St.) (6) Robert A. Heinlein 7 Jul 1907 1939 Aug (Astounding) (7) L. Sprague de Camp 27 Nov 1907 1937 Sep (Astounding) (8) Jack Williamson 29 Apr 1908 1928 Dec (Amazing) (9) Carl Jacobi 10 Jul 1908 1932 Jan (Weird Tales) (10) Neil R. Jones 29 May 1909 1930 Jan (Air Wonder) (11) Fritz Leiber, Jr. 24 Dec 1910 1939 Aug (Unknown) * His actual first publication was in DROLL STORIES (5/24). ** This was a translation of a story previously published in German. With the possible exception of Siodmak and Jones (they are retired if not dead --- I cannot find death dates for any of them though), all of the above are still alive and writing. --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Acton-Nagog, MA) UUCP: {decvax|ihnp4|allegra|ucbvax|...} !decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-akov68!boyajian ARPA: boyajian%akov68.DEC@DECWRL.DEC.COM