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| From Yahoo |
Oh, no! Not another treasure of SF lost to the world! I only just heard about this yesterday on Twitter. Vonda McIntyre, multi-award-winning SF author, has died of pancreatic cancer, the same illness that took my father back in 2009. Dad had a few months to finish things, including a floor to ceiling book case for me. Vonda had much less time, but finished her last novel.
I’ll be honest: I’ve only read a small part of her enormous output, and most of it was Star Trek, but I have rediscovered her in recent years through the writer co-op Bookview Cafe, when my friend Gillian Polack found a new home for her novel The Wizardry Of Jewish Women, after Satalyte Publishing suddenly closed down.
Did you know she founded Clarion West, the SF and fantasy writer’s workshop that has been going for many years and spread to Australia? I didn’t, though I do now.
She wrote both Star Trek and Star Wars fiction, including three Trek movie novelisations and a Trek novel called The Entropy Effect. Did you know that it was this novel that first gave Sulu a given name, Hikaru, which was later accepted as the canon name for the character? I did, actually!
She even wrote a series of books, Starfarers, based on an idea she had at a convention while on her umpteenth panel that was being negative about TV series. I’ll let you read her post about this on the Bookview Cafe website - it is great fun and I would watch this TV series like a shot if it existed! I’ll certainly be reading the books if I can get hold of them.
Meanwhile, hail and farewell, Vonda! You will be much missed.
Sorry to hear this. I saw McIntyre speak on a panel at a science fiction convention a long time ago. I also read her novelization of Star Trek 3. I did not know that she gave Sulu his first name.
ReplyDeleteOh no! :(
ReplyDeleteI come here to catch up on your A to Z blogs (I was too swamped with work yesterday to check, sorry), and I find this sad news. I haven't read much of her books, but I did enjoy Dreamsnake and The Moon and the Sun a lot.
Hi Brian! I never met her, I don’t even know if she was here for Aussiecon at all(we had four Worldcons here). Lucky you! Yes, she did create that name, even explained that it came from a Japanese poem.
ReplyDeleteJoanna, I have a copy of Dreamsnake somewhere on my shelves and have just downloaded The Moin And The Sun. I’ve also got a copy of Nevertheless, She Persisted, an anthology from her co-op Bookview Cafe, in which she has a story, and her Trek novels. It is sad, isn’t it? There will be one more novel.
I hadn't heard of her, and even though I have watched the original Star Trek series I haven't read any of the associated books either.
ReplyDeleteThe books were novelisations of the second, third and fourth films, plus one original Trek novel. It was lovely!
ReplyDeleteYes, one more novel. I was amazed by her perseverance to finish that book - as if she was clinging to life with all her might just to make sure it was complete.
ReplyDelete