S P A C E L I G H T
INDEX
Name: RUSSELL, Eric Frank
Aged: 73
Born: January 6, 1905
Where: Sandhurst or Camberley, Surrey, UK
Died: February 28, 1978
Where: Liverpool?, England
Interred: Liverpool?
Married: Ellen
When: 1930
Awarded: Short Story Hugo, 1955, for "Allamagoosa" and inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2000.
Eric Frank Russell
"Wars must be won or lost. There's no other alternative.
We cannot win merely by keeping the foe at arm's length.
We can never gain victory solely by postponing defeat."
Russell was one of those writers who could touch your life with his humor ["I look like someone who should have been hanged at Nuremberg."] or advance your understanding of life with his thoughts [Wasp]. His letters were fun to read, continually displaying his good natured genius and love of life. No British science fiction writer was more readily accepted by Americans than Eric Frank Russell. He was British to a fault but had a healthy disrespect for everything . . . which could be a natural result of four years in the RAF.
"Speaking for myself, I can say I've never yet turned out a yarn in the hope of pleasing critics. My sole purpose is to make an honest effort to entertain the readership. It's the readers who give with the dollars. If we were dependent upon the income derived from critics, literary poseurs, self-appointed tutors, and other hecklers in the crowd . . . we'd have starved to death years ago."
Anyone who calls themself a science fiction fan, should have read every Russell story. Editor Robert "Doc" Lowndes said of Russell's work, "I think one reason why EFR stories have been very consistently enjoyable is that they are done with conviction and enjoyment of the medium."
EFR is missed.
The Eric Frank Russell archive is held by the Sydney Jones Library at the University of Liverpool, England, and contains the Hugo Award for "Allamagoosa."
PEN NAMES: Webster Craig, Duncan H. Munro, and Niall Wilde
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mine here.
BIOGRAPHY: Science Fiction Writers, Scribners 1982
ON-LINE: Narrelle Harris's "Eric F Russell" webpage.
