Ray Nelson (1931-2022)
SF writer and Rotsler Award winning fan artist Ray Nelson died in his sleep overnight November 29/30 his son, Walter, announced today on Facebook. He was 91 years old.
As an author Ray Nelson was best known for his short story “Eight O’Clock in the Morning,” which became the basis of John Carpenter’s film They Live. He also had a short story, “Time Travel for Pedestrians,” in Harlan Ellison’s Again Dangerous Visions (1972). Nelson collaborated with Philip K. Dick on The Ganymede Takeover. His 1975 book Blake’s Progress, in which the poet William Blake and his wife are travelers in space and time, has been called his best work by critic John Clute.
As an artist, in the 1940s Nelson appropriated the propeller beanie as a symbol of science fiction fandom. His fannish cartoons were recognized with the Rotsler Award in 2003. He was inducted to the First Fandom Hall of Fame in 2019.
The Ray Nelson website, which Walter set up, has more bibliographical information, and samples of his artwork. There you can also read a humorous article about Ray’s collaborator, “The Last Days of Philip K. Dick”.
Nelson was born in Schenectady, NY in 1931. He became an active science fiction fan while attending high school in Michigan. After graduation, he went to the University of Chicago (studying theology). In the Fifties he lived for four years in Paris, and met Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and William Burroughs among others of the Beat Generation, as well as existentialists Jean Paul Sartre, Boris Vian and Simone de Beauvoir. He subsequently co-edited Miscellaneous Man, the first “Beatnik” little literary review. In Paris, he worked with Michael Moorcock smuggling Henry Miller books out of France.
Honors Nelson received as a writer included a special citation from the Philip K. Dick Award in 1983 for The Prometheus Man. As a fan, in addition to the awards already mentioned, he was a Best Fan Artist Retro Hugo finalist in 2001 (commemorating work done in 1950) and received the 2014 FAAn Lifetime Achievement Award.
Reprinted from File 770 Copyright by Mike Glyer 2022
