Name: KORNBLUTH, Cyril M. Aged: 35
Born: 1923 Where: New York, New York
Died: March 21, 1958 Where: Levittown, L.I., N.Y.
Interred: _ _ _
Married: Mary G. Byers When: 1943
Awarded: Kornbluth's name shared the 1973 Short Story HUGO for "The Meeting" with co-author Frederik Pohl. In 1986, The Syndic was given the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award for Best Classic Libertarian SF Novel.

A prolific writer and member of the Futurians, Cyril was a force. As a fan, he was brilliant, extreme, short tempered, impetuous, bitter, and capable of any action required (ie, punching Forry Ackerman in the stomach at the first World Con in NYC for writing inane ideas in prozine letter columns). Kornbluth was close behind Wollheim in being barred from that convention for...eh...enthusiasm. But the Futurians stuck together even when their ideas proved idealistic. Cyril's two main collaborators in writing SF were Frederik Pohl and Judith Merril (for a while, Mr & Mrs Pohl), likewise both Futurians.

World War II interrupted Kornbluth's attempts at higher education. Cyril served in the US Army, receiving a Bronze Star Medal for fighting done at The Battle of the Bulge. That experience tempered the boy and returned a man who was less combative on a personal level, matured, confident, and distrustful of governments. Kornbluth used the GI Bill to return to school while working at the same time. But something was missing in the postwar Cyril and a solid career objective eluded him. In 1951, Kornbluth took up writing full time.

Kornbluth's fiction is always pointed, satirical, pro-science, anti-government abuse of power, and clever. His outstanding short work included "The Marching Morons," "Friend to Man," "Gomez," and "The Mindworm." Cyril's solo novels were mostly aimed at the mystery market but Takeoff in 1952 was one of the year's best novels, nominated for the International Fantasy Award. In collaboration, Kornbluth's strongest partner and continuing proponent was Frederik Pohl; together, they wrote The Space Merchants and The Syndic, among others. With Judith Merril (as Cyril Judd), Kornbluth gave us Gunner Cade and Outpost Mars.

Kornbluth's premature death at age 35 deprived the SF world of a master who would have contributed much to a field just coming of age. Cyril's death came shortly after Henry Kuttner's and cast a pall over the entire genre. The following words by Isaac Asimov, a fellow Futurian and the most distinguished mind of all the SF writers, speak to a quality that Kornbluth had and Asimov could not emulate: "Cyril Kornbluth was, perhaps, the most brilliant and certainly the most erratic of the Futurians. He was, perhaps, more brilliant than I was..."

PEN NAMES: Gabriel Barclay, Arthur Cooke (shared with Wollheim), Cecil Corwin, Simon Eisner, Kenneth Falconer, S. D. Gottesman (shared), Warren F. Howard, Scott Mariner, Charles Satterfield, & Allen Zweig.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mine here.

BIOGRAPHY: Science Fiction Writers, Scribners 1982

OBITUARY: The New York Times, Saturday, Mar 22, 1958

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