Hungarian-born British children’s author and illustrator Val Biro (Balint Stephen Biro) died the same day, aged 92. Best known for his adventures about the vintage car “Gumdrop”, which appeared in thirty-seven picture books between 1966-2001, he also published such titles as Charles Perrault’s Mother Goose Fairy Tales and Tales from the Arabian Nights, illustrated numerous book covers (most notably for the “Hornblower” series), and was a regular contributor to Radio Times magazine for twenty-one years.
American author James H. (Harvey) Cobb, best known for his quartet of “Amanda Garrrett” futuristic naval techno-thrillers starting with Choosers of the Slain (1996), died of cancer on July 8, aged 61. He also “collaborated” with Robert Ludlum on the “Covert-One” thriller The Arctic Event (2007).
American author Curt Gentry, whose 1968 disaster novel The Last Days of the Late, Great State of California saw most of the West Coast disappear into the sea following a giant earthquake, died after a long battle with lung cancer on July 10, aged 83. His other twelve books include the Edgar Award-wining Helter Skelter (co-written with Vincent Bugliosi), about the Charles Manson murders.
Reclusive American author Thomas [Louis] Berger, best known for his satirical Western Little Big Man (1964), subsequently filmed starring Dustin Hoffman, died on July 13, aged 89. His books also include the horror novel Killing Time, the fantasies Being Invisible, Changing the Past and Arthur Rex: A Legendary Novel, and the SF-themed Vital Parts, Regiment of Women and Adventures of the Artificial Woman. Berger’s serio-comic novels Neighbours (filmed in 1981), The Houseguest, Meeting Evil and Suspects also contain nightmarish elements.
British book collector and film fan Jeffrey Myers died in an East Sussex nursing home on July 15, aged around 67. A stalwart of the British Fantasy Society and H.G. Wells Society for many years, he had been suffering from multiple sclerosis for some time. From 1987-88 Myers was the publisher of the groundbreaking genre movie magazine Shock Xpress, allowing the title to move to professional design and full-colour covers.
Best-selling, but often controversial, British Western author J. (John) T. (Thomas) Edson died after a long illness on July 17, aged 86. He had 137 books published, selling more than 27 million copies around the world. Between 1975-90 he published four novels in the Tarzan-related “Bunduki” series (a fifth title remains unpublished), along with four short stories. The first three books were issued with permission of both the Edgar Rice Burroughs Estate and Philip José Farmer due to connections with those authors’ work.
Nancy Carrigan who, with her husband Richard, collaborated on the 1971 SF novel The Siren Stars and had a story in a 1976 issue of Analog, died on July 18, aged 81.
American horror author, actor, director and podcast host Lawrence P. Santoro died of cancer of the duodenum on July 25, aged 71. His 2000 novella God Screamed and Screamed, and Then I Ate Him was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award, as was his audio-drama version of Gene Wolfe’s The Tree is My Hat (2002) starring Neil Gaiman, P.D. Cacek and Gahan Wilson. He also published the novel Just North of Nowhere in 2007 and Drink for the Thirst to Come, a collection of short fiction, appeared four years later. Santoro was known as the “Vincent Price of Podcasts” for his award-winning Tales to Terrify series, and during the 1990s he wrote a Weekender section on film for the Chicago Sun-Times.
American author, radio journalist and Wiccan high priestess Margot Adler, whose books include the non-fiction study Vampires Are Us: Understanding Our Love Affair with the Immortal Dark Side (2014), died of cancer on July 28, aged 68. In 1972, Adler founded the Hour of the Wolf radio show, devoted to SF, fantasy and related fields. As a correspondent for National Public Radio she interviewed J.K. Rowling for the first time on American radio, and her best known book is the neo-paganism study Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today (1979).
Italian film composer Giorgio Gaslini died on July 29, aged 84. His credits include Night of the Devils, So Sweet So Dead (aka The Slasher), Five Women for the Killer, Dario Argento’s Deep Red and the TV series La porta sul buio (Door Into Darkness).
Indian-born British journalist and espionage author [Harry] Chapman Pincher died on August 5, aged 100. He had suffered a small stroke seven weeks earlier. He joined the Daily Express in 1946, and worked for the newspaper for thirty years reporting on science and defence. His books include the SF novel Not With a Bang (1965), while The Giantkiller, The Penthouse Conspiracy, The Eye of the Tornado and One Dog and Her Man by Dido contain genre elements.
American literary agent and anthologist Kirby McCauley died of renal failure on August 30, aged 72. He had been suffering from diabetes. In the 1980s he famously represented such soon-to-be-Big Names as Stephen King, Peter Straub, George R.R. Martin, Roger Zelazny and others, including many of the older pulp authors. He edited the horror anthologies Night Chills and the World Fantasy Award-winning Frights and Dark Forces. McCauley helped found, and chaired, the first World Fantasy Convention in 1975 in Providence, Rhode Island. He received the Special Convention Award at World Fantasy in 1979.