S P A C E L I G H T

INDEX

VITAL STATISTICS

Name: WILLIAMSON, John Stewart Aged: 98
Born: April 29, 1908 Where: Bisbee, Arizona Territory
Died: November 10, 2006 Where: Portales, NM
Interred: _ _ _
Married: Blanche Slaten Harp When: 1947 (d 1985 car wreck)
Awarded: 1985 Hugo in Non-Fiction for Wonder's Child: My Life in Science Fiction and 2002 Hugo for Novella, "The Ultimate Earth;" 1975 Nebula Grand Master and 2003 Nebula for Novella "The Ultimate Earth;" 1985 Skylark Award; 1994 World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement; and 1998 Bram Stoker Award for Life Achievement.

"Jack" Williamson

"The writers and readers of science fiction form a special community
inhabited by the most able and interesting people I have known.
Belonging to it has been a privilege."

Williamson was sometimes referred to as The Dean of American Science Fiction Writers and since he was the longest lived active writer in the field with over 75 years of service and a teacher with an English doctorate, it seems apt. Jack's work reflects his longevity within a wide range of styles and quality of work...following on a parallel science fiction's growth from the pulps to modern sophistication. Along the road a lot of things got in his way...some were steam-rollers...but he overcame and clung to writing as though it was a lifeline and refuge. To use a cliche, he was a common man of gentle temperament and modest means...and was always available at conventions and easily approached.

Jack was one of the many Golden Age writers who served during World War II. Fortunately for Williamson, it was for three years in the Army Air Corp as a weather forecaster. After this event, which changed everyone's life, Jack emerged with a G.I. Bill and finished his postponed English degree. He mastered in 1957 with a thesis on "Prophecy in modern science fiction" and earned his doctorate in 1964 with a dissertation on H. G. Wells. With his educational mind-set changed to journalistic writing (direct presentation of facts), Jack's fictional output suffered. This has been described by many as "writer's block," but in actuality was a change of life style and a diminishment of his need to escape.

Williamson's writing career can be loosely arranged into three groupings; 1) Pre-WWII with its pulp development, 2) Post WWII with education, teaching career, family, and ranch...all taking precedence over fiction, and 3) Retirement and a return to solo fiction writing. Accurate summation of his works becomes a problem due to the fact that he often wrote in novella form (pulp serials) which were sometimes picked up as short novels and retitled, for example by Ace in doublebacks, etc...so the question of how many "novels" he wrote versus "short stories" depends on how one defines length or method of publication. But either way, Williamson was not a super-prolific writer in the category of an Asimov, Anderson, or Silverberg; nor even consistent...but he was persistent.

  • Phase I: Lots of short stories and serials in the pulps (including mystery and horror fields). Early novels of note were the Legion of Time sequence, and after a relocation to Los Angeles, writing the horror novel, Darker Than You Think, which appeared as a serial in Unknown in 1940 and book form in 1948. During the war he wrote as Will Stewart and created the SeeTee anti-matter stories in Astounding.
  • Phase II: The Humanoids (several shorter & popular works) in the late 1940s which warned of the dangers of perfecting robots. It was a time of collaborating with Frederik Pohl on a dozen or so novels that included the Starchild Trilogy (1960s), Farthest Star, and the Undersea Trilogy (1950s) of juvenile stories.
  • Phase III: Retirement from teaching brought back a high interest in writing fiction and a flurry of collections and novels appeared; The Moon Children (1972), The Power of Blackness (1976), Brother to Demons, Brother to Gods (1979), Manseed (1982), Lifeburst (1984), and its sequel Mazeway (1990). A late novel in 2001, Terraforming Earth, is a neat piece of work, while Jack's last novel in 2005, The Stonehenge Gate, appears to borrow the "Star Gate" theme (sand and all).

    • When in his 90s, Williamson wrote the "Ultimate Earth" (2001) novella, which claimed a prize that had eluded him since their creation, dual Hugo and Nebula awards for fiction.

    [Jack Williamson is credited with an addition to the lexicon in a 1941 story on anti-matter, "Collison Orbit," by creating the word "terraform." He also added the phrases, now household expressions, "genetic engineering" in "Dragon's Island" (1951), and "Prime Directive" in "With Folded Hands" (1947). Caveat: The term "Prime Directive" appears the following year in Heinlein's Space Cadets. This was after a time period when Williamson and Heinlein had met in Los Angeles and were friends. Either or both could have coined the term...certainly NOT Star Trek, which appears to have borrowed Heinlein's application.]

    "I have lived a wonderful life, and I will die with no regrets."


    ACCLAIM: Ray Bradbury: "Jack Williamson was one of the great science-fiction writers. He became my best friend and teacher."

    Arthur C. Clarke: "I have no hesitation in placing Jack Williamson on a plane with two other American giants, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein."

    Sam Moskowitz, in Seekers of Tomorrow: "Williamson is an author who pioneered superior characterization in a field almost barren of it, realism in the presentation of human motivation previously unknown, and scientific rationalization of supernatural concepts for story purposes."
    [Say WHAT, Sam?]

    Thumbnail from a snapshot by unknown photographer.

    PEN NAMES: Nils O. Sonderlund & Will Stewart

    BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mine here.

    AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Wonder's Child: My Life in Science Fiction, autobiography, 1984, Bluejay hc

    OBITUARY: Various.


    Send relevant email to George C. Willick