http://cache.io9.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png http://io9.com/tag/obituary http://io9.com/tag/obituary

Samuel Youd, who died yesterday at age 89, was better known under the name John Christopher, one of several pseudonyms. And under that name, he was best known for creating the fearsome Tripods, alien invaders who enslave the human race with the mind-controlling "cap." Christopher's Tripod trilogy is a wonderful adventure story, but it's also a direct precursor to our current flood of young-adult post-apocalyptic/dystopian novels. He also wrote the ground-breaking eco-apocalypse novel The Death of Grass. The Guardian has a fantastic tribute to an influential, fascinating author who will be greatly missed. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5883071&view=rss&microfeed=true

Joe Simon is a comics legend, for his role in creating the iconic superhero Captain America alone. But in recent years, many of us have gained a new appreciation for all his other great work with seminal artist Jack Kirby. He also co-created the 1940s version of the Sandman, plus some other great Golden Age superheroes like The Fly, the Fighting American, the Stuntman, and many others. Titan Books has done some great massive hardcover collections of Simon's writing and Kirby's art, and we featured a selection from one of them a while back. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5868505&view=rss&microfeed=true

Most authors can only dream of having the kind of imagination that Russell Hoban boasted. He had already written dozens of beloved children's books, including seven books about Frances, a young girl who appears as a badger, before he wrote Riddley Walker, an iconic post-apocalyptic novel. In Riddley Walker, it's 2,000 years in the future, and the Earth has long since been devastated by a nuclear catastrophe, leaving the human race enslaved by mysterious beings. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5868326&view=rss&microfeed=true

Bob Kane created Batman, and Bill Finger came up with a lot of the character's look. But without Jerry Robinson, who died today at age 89, the Batman universe would be way less exciting. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5866373&view=rss&microfeed=true

Iconoclast filmmaker and general shit stirring director Ken Russell has died. You may know him best for such films as Tommy, Altered States, The Devils and The Lair of the White Worm. If you've made it through his movies without getting a single personal button pushed, we tip our hat to you — because making people stand up and notice his work was what Russell did best. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5863230&view=rss&microfeed=true

Anne McCaffrey wasn't just the inventor of Pern, the world where a whole society is based on dragon-riding. She was also an incredibly influential author who helped transform the way science fiction and fantasy authors wrote about women, and the way all of us thought about bodies and selfhood. She was the first woman to win a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award, as well as a Grand Master of science fiction. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5862031&view=rss&microfeed=true

You might not have heard of Richard Gordon, but you've probably seen at least a few of his movies. He produced a string of fantastic science fiction and horror B-movies with titles like The Electronic Monster, The Fiend Without a Face, The Haunted Strangler, First Man into Space and Devil Doll. He worked with horror masters like Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, and helped bring a level of gothic suspense to these films, without relying on gore or special effects. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5856196&view=rss&microfeed=true

Derrick Bell is primarily known as a pioneering law professor who helped improve civil rights in America. But he also wrote one of the most disturbing thought experiments in science fiction, which later became an HBO TV special. In "The Space Traders," aliens arrive and offer the United States "enough gold to retire the national debt, a magic chemical that will cleanse America's polluted skies and waters, and a limitless source of safe energy to replace our dwindling reserves." The U.S. just has to give the aliens one thing in return: all of our black people. (Guess what white Americans decide?) Read the whole story here. [New York Times, via K. Tempest Bradford] More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5847408&view=rss&microfeed=true

Sakyo Komatsu's 1973 novel Japan Sinks hit a nerve for a whole generation of Japanese people, and spawned two movie versions. (Just as the name suggests, it was a novel in which the tectonic plates under Japan suddenly shift, setting off volcanos, earthquakes and tsunamis, killing millions.) More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5829767&view=rss&microfeed=true

Leslie Esdaile Banks, who died yesterday, should be an inspiration to writers everywhere — she successfully moved between the genres of fantasy, paranormal romance, crime fiction, African American fiction, and women's fiction, among others. And she also helped bring diversity to the worlds of fantasy and paranormal romance, mostly under the pen-name L.A. Banks. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5827616&view=rss&microfeed=true

Robert C.W. Ettinger, who famously said that death was for the unprepared and the unimaginative, died on Saturday. But the physics teacher and science fiction writer may be coming back — his family froze his body cryonically. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5824586&view=rss&microfeed=true

If you love science fiction anthologies and treasure the breadth and depth of story collections about the fantastic, then you owe a great debt to Martin H. Greenberg, who died over the weekend. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5816105&view=rss&microfeed=true

Joel Rosenberg, who died yesterday, was a civil libertarian who wrote about liberty in his fantasy novels. For example, in his first novel The Sleeping Dragon, a group of students travel to a magical world and work to end slavery. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5808377&view=rss&microfeed=true

Actor Jeff Conaway, who was best known among scifi fans for his role as the affable Babylon 5 security officer Zack Allan (and the star of the 1983 fantasy series Wizards and Warriors), died yesterday at the age of 60. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5806489&view=rss&microfeed=true

Jeffrey Catherine Jones was part of a group of artists who helped to redefine both book illustration and comics in the 1970s. Jones passed away yesterday at age 67, but her incredible artwork will live on. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5803835&view=rss&microfeed=true

There's no greater symbol of the raw optimism of the Space Age than Googie architecture, the gorgeously sharp architecture style used for restaurants, gas stations and other buildings. And Eldon Davis, who died last Friday, was a master of Googie. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5795937&view=rss&microfeed=true

Elisabeth Sladen, who played Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who and two spin-off shows, has died, according to BBC News. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5793664&view=rss&microfeed=true

Michael Gough, who died today, was one of those actors who's been in a ton of amazing stuff — after a while, you start to see him everywhere, giving amazing performances. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5783162&view=rss&microfeed=true

In many ways, Nicholas Courtney was the most essential actor in classic Doctor Who. From his first appearance in 1965 to his final outing two years ago, he was the most trustworthy friend of that mysterious time traveler from another world. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5767742&view=rss&microfeed=true

Dwayne McDuffie's work is a huge reason why many of us still care about superheroes, and comics generally. He reportedly died today, of unknown causes. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5767478&view=rss&microfeed=true

For generations of kids in Britain (and elsewhere) Elisabeth Beresford's creations, the Wombles, were a palpable presence that you suspected were always burrowing just underfoot, waiting to put all our rubbish to good use. Beresford died last week, aged 84. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5721126&view=rss&microfeed=true

Leslie Nielsen, who died last night, helped to pioneer the science fiction genre on screen when he starred in Forbidden Planet. And then he helped lampoon that genre in countless spoof movies, including 2001: A Space Travesty. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5701014&view=rss&microfeed=true

Ingrid Pitt survived a Nazi Concentration Camp and evaded the Communist police to become one of Britain's most beloved horror stars, reigning over Hammer films like The Vampire Lovers. She also rocked Doctor Who. She died last night, aged 73. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5697964&view=rss&microfeed=true

Dino De Laurentiis, producer of Barbarella, Army of Darkness, Dune and many other classics, passed away in Los Angeles Thursday morning. He was 91. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5687656&view=rss&microfeed=true Yoshinobu Nishizaki, the 75-year-old producer of the Space Battleship Yamato animated series, marketed in the United States as Star Blazers, has died. The producer, whose real name was Hirofumi Nishizaki, reportedly fell from the steamship Yamato, which was anchored off the coast of Tokyo's Chichijima Island before its trial voyage. He was wearing a wetsuit, and police believe he was attempting to get off the 485-ton vessel to swim. Nishizaki will be missed. [Mainichi Daily] More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5684658&view=rss&microfeed=true

Television lost one of its heroes last night, with the death of Stephen J. Cannell. Among his many creations was The Greatest American Hero, the story of a flawed superhero making it up as he goes along. He'll be missed. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5653286&view=rss&microfeed=true Ralph Vicinanza, a literary agent who specialized in foreign rights, died suddenly at his home on Saturday. For two decades, he represented such high-powered authors as Stephen King, Philip K. Dick, Carl Sagan, Robert A. Heinlein, George R.R. Martin, Terry Pratchett and Kim Stanley Robinson, primarily in overseas deals. In 1998, Vicinanza formed Created By, an L.A.-based production/management company that works mostly with science fiction. [Publishers Lunch] More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5651284&view=rss&microfeed=true

British novelist Edwin Charles Tubb died aged 91 in England last Friday, on the same day that his final novel, the dystopian epic To Dream Again, was accepted for publication in 2011. His contributions to the genre were immense. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5639404&view=rss&microfeed=true Former book editor Larry Ashmead died aged 78 on Friday. During his 43-year career in publishing, he edited more than 40 books by Isaac Asimov. According to AFP, he also rescued Simon Winchester's account of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, The Professor and the Madman from the "garbage bin" after everyone else had turned it down. He also published a book of his own in 2007, Bertha Venation And Hundreds of Other Funny Names of Real People, which included names like Ida Slaptor. He died in a Hudson, NY hospital after a brief illness. [AFP] More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5631385&view=rss&microfeed=true

Japanese animation has lost one of its giants. Satoshi Kon, director of Paprika and creator of Paranoia Agent, has apparently died at age 47. Gainax employee Takeda Yasuhiro tweeted the news a short time ago, and it was confirmed by Madhouse's Masao Maruyama via the Otakon committee. Paprika, Kon's lush exploration of dreams, was clearly an inspiration for Christopher Nolan's Inception. Check out this trailer mashup that came out a while ago: More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5620836&view=rss&microfeed=true

These incredibly lush images show the dangerous caverns deep under the ocean, where few people have ever gone. They're the work of underwater photographer Wes Skiles, who died July 21. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5605036&view=rss&microfeed=true

James P. Hogan, author of Inherit The Stars and 30 other hard science fiction novels, passed away yesterday. He talked in a 2004 interview about how 2001: A Space Odyssey made him a science fiction author... because it frustrated him. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5586134&view=rss&microfeed=true

José Saramago, Nobel Prize-winning author of the subversive, savage novels Blindness and Seeing, along with many other great books, has died at age 87. His fables and weird tales have one thing in common: the question "What if?" [NPR] More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5567438&view=rss&microfeed=true

The illustrator who made his bones illustrating classic titles like Creepy and Eerie before continuing Alex Raymond's genre-defining work on Flash Gordon and bringing Star Wars to comics has died at 79, leaving a vibrant legacy. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5562788&view=rss&microfeed=true

If you were alive in the 1970s and something freaked you the fuck out, it may well have been the work of Arthur Herzog III, who died yesterday. Killer bees and genetically-engineered stupidity plagues were among his enduring horrors. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5558849&view=rss&microfeed=true

Frank Frazetta passed away earlier today. The creator of many of the genre's most iconic barbarians, warriors and monsters, not to mention Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers art, Frazetta's influence will go on forever. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5535352&view=rss&microfeed=true

Venerable creator Dick Giordano has passed away at 77. A longtime inker, editor, and illustrator for DC Comics, Giordano worked on such projects as Neal Adams' Batman and helmed DC editorial initiatives such as Watchmen and Crisis on Infinite Earths. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5503533&view=rss&microfeed=true

No artist inspired more love of space exploration and more excitement about our future than Robert McCall, who died Friday. He also painted gorgeous posters for 2001: A Space Odyssey and was art director on Star Trek: The Motion Picture. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5482935&view=rss&microfeed=true

This past Sunday, Kage Baker lost her year-long battle with cancer. We science-fiction readers have lost a brilliant author and a dear friend. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5462764&view=rss&microfeed=true

Whether or not you've heard Dan O'Bannon's name before, you're a fan of his work on Dark Star, Star Wars, Alien, Lifeforce, Screamers and Total Recall. He passed away yesterday, but his legacy on lives forever. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5429739&view=rss&microfeed=true