Writer Mike Resnick passed away yesterday, January 9, 2020, due to a particularly aggressive lymphoma that was diagnosed in November 2019.
Mike Resnick was one of the great adventurous science fiction authors, but he could write novels with profound themes as well such as the allegories of western colonialism in Africa. He became a science fiction writer because he was a fan of this genre and also for this reason he went to convention.
Isaac Asimov was born in the village of Petrovichi, near Smolensk, Russia. His birth date is unknown: the reconstructions indicate that he was born between October 4, 1919, and January 2, 1920, and the latter date was adopted as his birthday.
Isaac Asimov’s writing career began in 1939, with the publication of the short story “Marooned off Vesta” in the magazine “Amazing Stories”. He soon became famous thanks to the first stories about positronic robots, which were followed in subsequent years by the ones that formed the then Foundation Trilogy.
Isaac Asimov was one of the writers who brought science fiction out of the world of magazines and a great scientific popularizer with his many articles and essays. A humanist and rationalist atheist, he brought many of his ideas into his literary works too, becoming one of the first great authors of hard science fiction, gaining a fame that spread worldwide. He left an legacy estimated in about 500 books of various genres.
Michael John Moorcock was born on December 18, 1939, in London, England. As a writer, his career began in the fantasy genre with the first stories of what’s his most famous character, Elric of Melniboné, to continue for decades adding novels and short fiction in which he interprets the heroic fantasy genre in a personal way.
Michael Moorcock’s production is very varied and in some cases difficult to label because it mixes genres and subgenres in various ways. His activity is made more complex by his musical projects he alternates with literary ones, and by the fact that in various cases he published revised editions of some works with significant changes.
Michael Moorcock’s activity continued expanding the various cycles and sub-cycles with more or less interconnected novels and short fiction. In recent years he seems to be less active in the literary field and more in the musical field but his production is already so big as to require an encyclopedia to explain the great multiverse he created with all the interconnections among the various universes and their heroes generated by this writer’s extraordinary fantasy.
Lois McMaster Bujold was born on November 2, 1949 in Columbus, Ohio, USA. In the 1980s Lois McMaster Bujold she wrote the first three novels of the Vorkosigan Saga, her best known science fiction work. In the following decades she had success in the fantasy genre as well with the Chalion series and the series known as The Sharing Knife.
Neal Town Stephenson was born on October 31, 1959 in Fort Meade, Maryland, USA. Neal Stephenson’s career as a writer began in 1984 with the novel “The Big U”, a satire on university life. A novel more typical of his production was “Zodiac” (1988), an ecological thriller.
Neal Stephenson isn’t a very prolific writer, although some of his novels are really long. He’s often not easy to read because his novels can be really complex with the development of many different themes. You can also read his articles in technology magazines.
