S P A C E L I G H T
INDEX
VITAL STATISTICS
Name: ROCKLIN, Ross Lewis
Aged: 75
Born: February 21, 1913
Where: Ohio
Died: Oct 29, 1988
Where: Los Angeles Co, CA
Interred: _ _ _
Married: Frances Rosenthal
When: 1941 (div 1947)
"Ross Rocklynne"
One of the early pulp fans (co-founder of Cincinati fandom) turned writer who was able to move along with the flow and published repeatedly in Astounding. Ross attended the first SF Convention in 1939 NYC as a semi-pro, having sold his first story, "Man of Iron" in 1934.
Over the next four decades, Ross built a decent inventory of short stories, some excellent. But lesser writers and those who wrote novels became far more famous than Rocklin and Donald Wollheim's efforts at Ace Books to correct that perception by issuing two collections of Ross's stories had little effect on the public.
Rocklin had a vivid imagination and made the transition from pulp writer to accomplished modern SF writer. He laid out for over a decade --- returning in 1968 with several great stories, among them "Ching Witch" for Harlan Ellison's Again, Dangerous Visions.
The great short story writer, Chad Oliver, said of Rocklin, "Ross Rocklynne was one of the important authors of magazine science fiction's middle years . . . never less than a capable story teller. He was a major creator of the science fiction of the past, but he was also one of those who pointed the way ahead."
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mine here. In print, The Work of Ross Rocklynne: An Annotated Bibliography & Guide, by Douglas A. Menville, 1989, Borgo Press.
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