Jack Williamson, 98; writer was pioneer in sci-fi genre
LOS ANGELES -- His first science-fiction short story was published in 1928, a year after Charles Lindbergh made his historic solo flight from New York to Paris.
But well into the first decade of the new millennium -- and nearly 80 years after "The Metal Man" appeared in an issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories when he was 20 -- award-winning author Jack Williamson was still turning out science fiction.
A pioneer of the genre and one of the longest-active writers in the field, Mr. Williamson died Friday at his home in Portales, N.M., his family said. He was 98.
"Jack Williamson was one of the great science-fiction writers," writer Ray Bradbury said. "He did a series of novels which affected me as a young writer with dreams. I met him at 19, and he became my best friend and teacher."
Bradbury said he showed Mr. Williamson some "awful stories" he had written, "and he was very kind and didn't mention how terrible they were. He shaped my life; he was very quiet and unassuming and respected my dream and let me be awful for a long time until I got to be good."
Arthur C. Clarke, author of "2001: A Space Odyssey," once observed, "I have no hesitation in placing Jack Williamson on a plane with two other American giants, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein."
Mr. Williamson, who believed that "science is the door to the future and science fiction is the golden key," wrote more than 50 novels, including "The Humanoids," "Darker Than You Think," and "Legion of Time."
Nearly a dozen of his science-fiction novels were written in collaboration with Frederik Pohl, including "Undersea Quest," "Starchild," and "Farthest Star."
The 1949 novel "The Humanoids," one of Mr. Williamson's best-known works, was a cautionary tale about the dangers inherent in the development of technology: robots that were designed to be helpful to mankind became so protective of humans that they essentially became jailers.
" 'The Humanoids' marked a turning point in science fiction and in Jack's career," said James Frenkel, Mr. Williamson's longtime editor. "Before that, science fiction had been a cheerleader for science and technology and really had not, for the most part, focused on the potential dangers of science and technology."
Samuel Moskowitz, author of the 1961 book "Seekers of Tomorrow: Masters of Modern Science Fiction," wrote that Mr. Williamson was "an author who pioneered superior characterization in a field almost barren of it, realism in the presentation of human motivation previously unknown, scientific rationalization of supernatural concepts for story purposes, and exploitation of the untapped story potentials of antimatter."
As a faculty member at Eastern New Mexico University in the 1960s, Mr. Williamson launched one of the nation's first college courses on science fiction and fantasy writing.
In 1976, he received a Grand Master Award for lifetime achievement from Science Fiction Writers of America. Four years later, he received the Bram Stoker Award for superior achievement from the Horror Writers Association.
But his writing career was far from over. His 2001 novella "The Ultimate Earth" won both Hugo and Nebula awards. Mr. Williamson's last novel, "The Stonehenge Gate," in which a gateway between Earth and other worlds is discovered beneath the Saharan desert, was published in 2005.
His early years seemed like an unlikely launching pad for a science-fiction pioneer.
The eldest of four children, he was born in Bisbee, Ariz., when the state was still a territory. And when his family moved to eastern New Mexico in 1915, they did it in a covered wagon.
But his family's arduous farming life served only to feed young Mr. Williamson's imagination.
"We lived on isolated farms and ranches, far from anybody, and when I was young I knew very few other kids; so I lived to a great extent in my imagination," Mr. Williamson said in 1986.
