S P A C E L I G H T
INDEX
Name: BROWN, Fredric William
Aged: 65
Born: October 29, 1906
Where: Cincinnati, Ohio
Died: March 11, 1972
Where: Tucson, Arizona
Interred: _ _ _
Married 1: Helen Ruth
When: 1929 (div 1947)
Married 2: Elizabeth Charlier
When: October 11, 1948
Awarded: Edgar 1947
Fredric Brown
"After the last atomic war, Earth was dead; nothing grew, nothing lived.
The last man sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door..."
A writer with a true sense of humor (as above), Brown earned his higher education at Hanover College, in southern Indiana, and the University of Cincinnati. Fred was one of those who added to our collective "sense of wonder."
Author of the delightful Martians Go Home, in 1955, and the very impressive The Lights in the Skies Are Stars, 1953. Fred also authored several outstanding short stories and his best, "Arena," was used as a Star Trek episode. Brown, like Bester, didn't write an over-whelming amount of science fiction but what each wrote in the 50s set them apart from and above other writers. Brown spent a lot of his time writing novels in the mystery field.
"Fred hated to write. But he loved having written. He would do everything he could think of to delay sitting at his typewriter: he would dust his chair, tootle on his flute, read a little, tootle some more. After a time his conscience would begin to hurt, and he would actually sit at his typewriter. He might write a line or two, or he might write a few pages. But the books got written." Elizabeth Brown.
PEN NAMES:
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mine here.
BIOGRAPHY - ONLINE: A very nice page by Alex Verstegen here.
BIOGRAPHY: Martians & Misplaced Clues: the Life and Work of Fredric Brown, by Jack Seabrook, Popular Press (1993).
OBITUARY: Associated Press, March 13, 1972
