Arthur Wilson “Bob” Tucker (photo ©Judy Mays) was born on November 23, 1914, in Deer Creek, Illinois, USA. Generally, he used the name Wilson Tucker for the novels and short fiction published in books and professional magazines but in fanzines, he generally used the name Bob Tucker. Occasionally he used other pseudonyms.
Wilson Tucker started collaborating with the science fiction fandom in 1932 but for a few years, writing was a pastime, although after a few years, he started collaborating with conventions, another activity that went on for all his life. In 1933 he started working as a projectionist in a cinema and that was one of his official jobs until his retirement in 1972.
In 1937 Wilson Tucker got married for the first time, with Mary Joesting. The two of them had a son and a daughter but their marriage only lasted until 1942.
Wilson Tucker published his first science fiction story, “Interstellar Way Station”, in 1941. In that year, he invented the expression “space opera” for certain types of space adventures. As a professional writer, in the early years, he wrote especially mystery stories, beginning with “The Chinese Doll” in 1946.
In the ’50s, Wilson Tucker also started writing science fiction novels, beginning with “The City in the Sea” in 1951. Of those years his best-known one is “The Long Loud Silence” (1952).
In 1953, Wilson Tucker got married again to Fern Delores Brooks: the two of them had three sons and their marriage lasted until the writer’s death.
In those years, Wilson Tucker also published other noteworthy novels such as “Man from Tomorrow”, also known as “Wild Talent”, in 1954, and “Time Bomb”, also known as “Tomorrow Plus X” in 1955.
Wilson Tucker went on with both his writing career and his participation in fandom and conventions. In the ’60s he published other novels, including “To the Tombaugh Station” in 1960, the spy story “The Warlock” in 1967 up to the one that is probably his best-known novel, “The Year of the Quiet Sun” in 1970, winner of a retroactive John W. Campbell Memorial Award as it started a few years later.
In 1970, Wilson Tucker won the Hugo Award as Best Fan Writer for his activities in the fanzines.
Wilson Tucker wrote a few more novels of various genres publishing his last one, “Resurrection Days”, in 1981. He kept on writing articles of critics for many more years. In 2001 he won the Retro-Hugo Award for the Best Fanzine of 1951, “Science Fiction Newsletter”. In 2004 he won again the Retro-Hugo Award as the Best Fan Writer of 1954.
Wilson Tucker died on October 6, 2006. Today probably few people would consider him among the best writers in science fiction history but in his stories he always expressed several ideas and he was very important for the decades of activity in fandom and conventions.
