t's New Year's Day as I sit down to write these words, and I find myself in a maudlin mood. Arriving at each new January 1 has always left me in such a state, and greeting the first day of 2005 proves to be no different. The main reason is that on days such as this, I think too much of friends who are are no longer with us. We each tend to do that in our own private ways, moved by the season, but since I happen to be in charge of this editorial, I get the chance to do my mourning in a more public way, and ask that you remember some of the missing with me.
We lost Julie Schwartz this year, even though it looked for a while as if he were going to be with us forever. He was Ray Bradbury's first literary agent, and the comic-book editor who revived DC Comics during the Silver Age by bringing back its Golden Age heroes in new incarnations. He was also living history. I recall the time at a Stoker Awards banquet when Harlan Ellison urged us all from the stage to track Julie down and shake his hand, because Julie was the only one in the room who had shaken hands with H.P. Lovecraft. To me, that was like saying that Julie had been around to pet a dinosaur—he provided a literal link to the beginnings of science fiction. And the fact that he helped create both science fiction fandom and comic book fandom shouldn't be slighted either, since it's unlikely I would have ever have met my wife without those accomplishments.
But he wasn't the only one stolen from us by 2004. There were many others, some who were an integral part of our field, and others who, though peripheral, still made a powerful impact. Gone are Jack Cady, winner of the Nebula Award for the novella "The Night They Buried Road Dog"; Robert Merle, whose Un Animal doue de raison became a best-seller in English as The Day of the Dolphin; and Hugh B. Cave, a pulp writer who, since his first publication in 1929, had entertained us with over 800 stories.
And the memories linger on ...
We also lost both Christopher Reeve, who made us believe a man could fly as Superman, and Marlon Brando, who played his father, Jor-El. Fay Wray will scream no more, except when we watch the original King Kong, and neither will Janet Leigh, who, as we saw in Psycho, wasn't such a bad screamer herself. Gone are Harry Lampert, the first artist to illustrate the adventures of the Flash during the Golden Age; Francis Crick, who in 1959 co-discovered DNA and set us on the path to mapping the human genome; and Mercedes McCambridge, who provided the terrifying voice of possession in The Exorcist.
Jerry Goldsmith, who scored episodes of The Twilight Zone, and also such classic movies as Planet of the Apes, Logan's Run and Alien, will be making music no more. Elmer Bernstein, the composer who started out scoring such films as the famed turkey Robot Monster, but who will always be best remembered for the theme from the Magnificent Seven, has fallen silent as well. There'll be no more paintings from artist Mel Hunter, whose robots graced the covers of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction for decades. And no more words from Joan Aiken, best known for her fantasy classic The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.
I grieve for Tony Randall, who took on multiple roles in 7 Faces of Dr. Lao, a film that touched me as a child, and which I still love today. Comic-book writer Bob Haney, who was involved with some of my favorite superheroes, such as Metamorpho, Eclipso and the Doom Patrol, will be scripting no more. And I hope you don't mind if I also mention Bob Keeshan, who baby-sat me as Captain Kangaroo.
I may have missed a public figure important to you, but please forgive me, as this is a rather personal and biased list.
And now, as I look over this list of fallen talents, and as 2005 brings news of yet another passing, this time of the 10-time Hugo Award-winning artist Frank Kelly Freas, I am moved to think ... how sad. Why can't we just keep growing, getting better at what we do ... forever? Why must we humans learn how to control our talents only to see them stolen just when they are perfected? It seems a shame that such creative individuals as these master their arts only to vanish and take the fruits of their arts with them. The universe is a thief, for though
science keeps extending our life spans, death seems inevitable, regardless of our advances and breakthroughs.
Perhaps someday science will take us to a place in which we will no longer have to say farewell. A science-fictional thought, perhaps, but one that always comes over me as an old year departs and a new year starts.
Scott Edelman started his trek to the editor-in-chief position at Science Fiction Weekly decades ago, when he began working as an assistant editor at Marvel Comics. Between these two positions, this four-time Hugo Award nominee in the category of Best Editor was the founding editor of the award-winning magazine Science Fiction Age, in addition to editing Sci-Fi Universe, Sci-Fi Flix and Satellite Orbit. Currently, he also edits SCI FI, the official magazine of the SCI FI Channel. His most recent short story appears in the new anthology Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic.
