Word: sf
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...writer in the field, he created a devoted, informed audience for speculative fiction. If he didn't coin the term "sci-fi" - Robert Heinlein used it first - then by using the phrase in public in 1954 he instantly popularized it (to the lasting chagrin of purists, who preferred "SF"). Forry, as everyone called him, was the genre's foremost advocate, missionary and ballyhooer. His love for the form, stretching back more than 80 years, godfathered and legitimized the obsessions of a million fanboys. His passion was their validation. He was the original Fanman. (See TIME's collection of Hollywood...
...find smiling Forry at the door. He leads a tour of his home, every inch of which is crammed and wallpapered with memorabilia: Bela Lugosi's ring and Dracula cape; Ray Harryhausen's miniature of a shattered U.S. Capitol dome from an entire room dedicated to the silent SF film Metropolis; artifacts and fetishes from The War of the Worlds, Invaders from Mars, The Thing from Another World, Raiders of the Lost Ark, ad infinitum, ad gloriam. From a shelf crammed with books he pulls out that early issue of Amazing Stories...
...Unlike some fandroids, Ackerman actually got married. His wife Wendayne, four years older than Forry, translated SF novels by the German authors Karl Herbert Scheer, Kurt Mahr and Walter Ernsting. She died in 1990 and is buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, Calif., under the marker "Wife of Mr. Science Fiction." On his MySpace page, Forry wrote: "My life companion, Wendayne (the only one in the world) Ackerman, as the aftermath of a mugging in Italy, died some years ago, but not before translating 150 sci-fi novels from French & German, moonlighting while teaching for 20 years at university...
...World, consisting of a single letter," went out with a rather longer mystery tale. He had been ailing through the fall, and at the end of October posted a message on Facebook that he was "battling an infection this Halloween. Boo (hoo)." On Nov. 6 the Locus.com SF site, the British Fantasy Society and Wikipedia all announced Ackerman's death - then retracted it. Not so much undead as not-yet-dead, Ackerman stayed with us for another four weeks. Through this extended expiration, emails flooded into the Acker-mini-mansion - love notes from fans like him, recognizing their model...
...SF Switzerland just pulled out of the Somali region, saying the [Ethiopian] security services there [who are fighting an ethnic Somali insurgency] were placing too many restrictions on it. Are you placing security and politics above humanitarian concerns in that area? That's not true. Most of the humanitarian agencies are operating there. Only those who find it difficult to distinguish between political interference and humanitarian assistance are restricted. I can give my assurance that the Ogaden is receiving the same level of care as other affected parts of the country...