Stephen (ed.) - The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 18

British-born film and television executive and author James Hardimandied in San Francisco on February 19th, aged 86. He moved to Hollywood in 1956, where he worked for Walt Disney Productions, CBS-TV, Screen Gems and Columbia Pictures Television. He spent a number of years in Tokyo as a correspondent for Daily Variety , and his supernatural novel The House Where Evil Dwells was filmed in Japan in 1982 starring Edward Albert, Susan George and Doug McClure.

58-year-old African-American SF author Octavia E.(Estelle) Butlerdied of a stroke on February 24th after striking her head during a fall on the sidewalk outside her Seattle home. She was reportedly on high blood pressure medication at the time. Inspired by the movie Devil Girl from Mars , she began writing at age twelve and her first story, “Crossover”, appeared in the 1971 anthology of the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop. She went on to publish nearly twenty books, including Patternmaster, Kindred, Wild Seed, Parable of the Talents and the 2005 vampire novel Fledgling . Butler received the Nebula Award, two Hugo Awards and the PEN Center West Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1995 she was the first SF writer granted a “genius” award from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, receiving $295,000 over five years.

American artist Ronald Clynedied of a heart attack on February 26th, aged 80. He sold his first illustration to Fantastic Stories at the age of fifteen, and in 1945 he was commissioned to illustrate the dust-jacket for August Derleth’s collection Something Near . This began a long association with Derleth’s Arkham House imprint, and during the 1940s he produced numerous covers for the small press, including The Opener of the Way by Robert Bloch, Night’s Black Agents by Fritz Leiber, Jr, The Clock Strikes Twelve by H. Russell Wakefield (his personal favourite) and The Lurker at the Threshold by H. P. Lovecraft and Derleth. He also contributed illustrations to the pulp magazines, including Weird Tales . Clyne occasionally returned to work for Arkham in the 1950s and ’60s, but was by then a prolific and successful artist employed by all the major New York publishing houses. Between 1951 and 1981 he also created more than 500 distinctive album covers for Folkways Records, which he considered his best work.

American fantasy author Ronald Anthony Crossdied from a stroke on March 1st, aged 68. His first story appeared in New Worlds 6 in 1973, and since 1994 he published four volumes in the “Eternal Guardians” series.

Richard[Patrick] Terra,who published non-fiction in Analog, The New York Review of Science Fiction and other publications, died of a pulmonary embolism on March 4th, aged 46.

Dutch-born SF writer Nancy Ann Dibble(Ansen Dibell) died on March 7th, aged 63. Her “King of Katmorie” series ran over five books (1978–85), and as “Nan Dibble” she wrote Beyond Words, Beyond Silence , a 1992 tie-in to the Beauty and the Beast TV series.

Former attorney, antiques dealer and science fiction author David Feintuch[Mason] died of a heart attack on March 16th, aged 61. He had a long history of cardiac troubles and suffered from Type II Diabetes. Mason won the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer in 1996 for his military SF novel Midshipman’s Hope , and continued the Hornblower-like “Seafort Saga” over a further eight books. He also wrote the fantasy novels The Still and The King .

US academic and humorous fantasy author John Morressydied of a massive heart attack on March 20th, aged 75. He made his debut in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction with “Accuracy” in 1971, and his novels include Starbrat, Frostworld and Dream fire, The Juggler, Ironbrand, Graymantle and Kingsbane . In 1986 he created the humorous “Kedrigern” series, which includes A Voice for Princess, The Questing of Kedrigern and Kedrigern and the Dragon Comme II Faut .

SF author Kurt von Trojandied of bone and kidney cancer in Australia on March 22nd, aged 69. Born in Vienna, his books include the novels The Transing Syndrome and The Atrocity Shop and the collection When I Close My Eyes .

Jane Yolen’s husband of more than forty years, poet David W.(William) Stemple,died in his sleep after a long battle with cancer the same day, aged 68.

Polish SF author and critic Stanislaw Lemdied of heart failure on March 27th, aged 84. The author of Solaris (filmed twice), his more than seventy books sold over twenty-seven million copies worldwide and were translated into more than forty languages. Lem’s other books include Man from Mars, The Astronauts, Hospital of the Transfiguration, The Star Diaries, The Chain of Chance, Memoirs Found in a Bathtub, The Invincible, The Cyberiad, Scene of the Crime and One Human Minute . He was made an honorary member of the SFWA in 1973, but that status was revoked when Lem published a controversial essay decrying the poor state of science fiction writing. He stopped writing fiction in 1989.

Typographical designer Ruari McLeandied the same day, aged 88. During the 1950s and ’60s he supervised the design of such iconic British children’s comics as Eagle, Girl, Swift and Robin .

American author and screenwriter Henry Farrell(Charles Henry Myers), whose fiction was filmed as What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte, How Awful About Allan and What’s the Matter With Helen? , died on March 29th, aged 85.

Australian fan Diane Marchantdied of pancreatic cancer on April 5th. In 1972 she created the Aussie Star Trek Welcommitte with Jacqueline Lichtenberg, and is credited with publishing the first sexually explicit “slash” fan fiction two years later.

TV writer and producer Burt Pearldied of lymphoma on April 6th, aged 49. He scripted episodes of The Highwayman, Something is Out There and Touched by an Angel , also executive producing the latter series until 2003.

63-year-old British SF and fantasy author and editor Angus Wellsdied in an accidental fire at his home on April 11th. While working at Sphere Books in the 1970s he edited a number of “Best of” collections based around individual authors. His own books include the TV tie-in Star Maidens (as by “Ian Evans”) and Swordsmistress of Chaos and A Time of Ghosts both with Robert Holdstock (as “Richard Kirk”), the first two volumes in the “Raven” series to which he contributed a further three solo novels. Wells’ other fantasy novels, published under his own name, include the “Book of the Kingdoms”, “Godwars” and “Exiles” series. He was also a prolific author of Westerns and adventure novels under a variety of house names.

88-year-old Scottish novelist Dame Muriel Spark(Muriel Sarah Camberg), whose novels The Comforters, Memento Mori, The Ballad of Beckham Rye and The Hothouse by the East River all contain elements of the supernatural, died in Florence, Italy, on April 13th. Best known for her 1961 book The Brime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Ghost Stories of Muriel Spark was published in 2003. Her revisionist 1951 biography, Child of Light , won a HWA Bram Stoker Award when expanded in 1987 as Mary Shelley: A Biography .