Name: ANDERSON, Poul William Aged: 74
Born:November 25, 1926 Where: Bristol, Pennsylvania
Died: July 31, 2001 (SS says Aug 1) Where: Orinda, California
Interred: _ _ _
Married: Karen Kruse When: 1953
Awarded: Hugo Awards for: 1961 Short Fiction, "The Longest Voyage;" 1964 Short Fiction, "No Truce with Kings;" 1969 Novelette, "The Sharing of Flesh;" 1972 Novella, "The Queen of Air and Darkness;" 1973 Novelette, "Goat Song;" 1979 Novelette, "Hunter's Moon;" and the 1982 Novella, "The Saturn Game." Nebula Awards for: 1971 Novelette, "The Queen of Air and Darkness;" 1972 Novelette, "Goat Song;" 1981 Novella, "The Saturn Game;" and the 1997 Grand Master. 1974 British Fantasy August Derleth Award for Best Fantasy Novel, Hrolf Kraki's Saga. 1978 Gandalf Award Grandmaster of Fantasy. 1982 E.E. Smith Skylark Award. Prometheus Libertarian Awards: 1985 & 1995 [2]. In 2000, Poul Anderson was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.

He was a main structural beam in the house of Science Fiction. Poul believed that men, and those who aspired to that title, were born with obligations and had a duty to fulfill those obligations...no matter the cost, no matter the time, and could not find honor by doing otherwise. And because he was so successful and prolific at writing science fiction, a large body of work is based on themes revolving around that central idea. Soldiers say it differently, "The Corp, the Corp, and nothing but the Corp." Poul thought of mankind in science fiction and fantasy that way. Yet, Life shaped him and he felt things...he was subjective and romantic...and he sometimes let the beauty of the thing win out over science and knowledge. It was, after all, fiction.

Born in Pennsylvania, but raised in Texas and Minnesota, Poul would marry Karen Kruse in 1953 and relocate permanently to the San Francisco Bay area. Karen often received co-author credit in Poul's work and also wrote things of her own. They raised a family and had a fairly normal life as lives go for science fiction writers.

Anderson's first story, "Tomorrow's Children," was published in Astounding SF in 1947...a year before he graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in physics. He acquired an extensive knowledge of things Scandinavian and used that theme along with physics and a high degree of literacy to watermark his works, which are about evenly divided between short forms and novels. Poul considered his best works were Brain Wave, The Boat of a Million Years, The Enemy Stars, Midsummer Tempest, Tau Zero, & Three Hearts and Three Lions.

Sam Moskowitz was of the opinion that the world began to notice Poul Anderson with the publication of The High Crusade (1960), a novel that played off of Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. It was in this time period that Poul had begun winning awards for his short forms. Moskowitz said in Seekers of Tomorrow (1961+) that "Anderson's interest in using historical cultures as the background for his science fiction has given him the stature in the field that his previous diversity of effort did not bring him." Anderson was also working in other fields that included non-fiction, historical sagas, and mysteries.

Through-out his literary life; springing from the early collaborations with Gordy Dickson to involved stories that played physics, fantasy, and time travel against historical themes; Anderson sold what he wrote and maintained a steady popularity for over 40 years. A gentle man and a gentleman, albeit a highly opinionated one. He was one of our best, and ironically, passes from us in the same year as his old collaborator, Gordy Dickson. And a pair of those, we'll not soon see again.

Photo credit: (unknown to me...if you know, please send along.)

PEN NAMES: A. A. Craig, Michael Karageorge, & Winston P. Sanders

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mine here.

BIOGRAPHY:

OBITUARY: London Times, Reuters, & AP and SFWA, with tributes

Send relevant email to George C. Willick