And another one passes on....

[tigerfort]

For those who don't know, Philip Jose Farmer, author of... well, too many books to mention, many of them good, died in his sleep last night. I'm not quite sure where you count a generation of sci-fi authors as separating from the next one, but I think there can't be many of his generation left, now; he and Arthur C Clarke were the last two I knew for certain were still alive, and they're both gone....

Comments

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Pohl is still alive at 89; he's the only one that springs to mind.

[colinbj.livejournal.com]

Larry Niven, IMHO the last really good hard SF writer, is a mere sprog of 70 (born 1938 to Asimov's 1920). I would however count him as that generation of output, because his best works were written at a relatively young age: Ringworld, capping the Known Space universe, came out in 1970.

I am most curious about 'Escape From Hell', a sequel to 'Inferno' due out this year, but most of his later works have been (at least relatively) disappointing.

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

I always thought of Niven as part of the 'next' generation after Asimov and Clarke (although I confess I'd have guessed he was a little younger than 70, if I'd been asked without the opportunity to look it up - but in his sixties, so not much younger:). But I'm not sure that there's any good reason for that.