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Forry Ackerman Dead At 92
rrohbeck was one of several readers to note the passing of Forrest J. Ackerman at the age of 92. Ackerman, who coined the term sci-fi in 1954, has been called the 'world's biggest fan.' Over a long career he acted as literary agent for Isaac Asimov, A.E. van Vogt, Hugo Gernsback, and L. Ron Hubbard; he published Ray Bradbury's first short story in a fan magazine in 1938. Ackerman wrote over 2,000 articles and short stories, including, oddly enough, lesbian fiction in the 1940s. In recent years, mounting health bills forced him to sell his home, the 'Ackermansion,' and most of the 300,000 items of memorabilia it stored.
to what is thoughts were on the evolution of scifi?
if anyone has a perspective on that, this man certainly does
RIP
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So we can blame him for giving Hubbard his start? Not something I'd brag about. ;)
jX [ Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. - Einstein ]
lesbian fiction in the 1940s.
Um, link?
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
("Its value grows rapidly, even for small inputs. For example A(4,2) contains 19,729 decimal digits.")
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He wrote lesbian porn in the 40s. Thats gotta be major points right there.
...Ackerman wrote over 2,000 articles and short stories, including, oddly enough, lesbian fiction in the 1940s...
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Not very surprising to the Slashdot crowd.
Our fond attachment to lesbians is very well known.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
He also wrote what has been reported to have been the first lesbian science-fiction story ever published, âoeWorld of Loneliness.â And under the pen name Laurajean Ermayne, he wrote lesbian romances in the late 1940s for the lesbian magazine Vice Versa. via http://larryfire.wordpress.com/2008/12/05/forrest-j-ackerman-writer-editor-who-coined-sci-fi-dies-at-92/
What do lesbians have to do with the quantum mechanical pseudo-particle for friction?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
He must be an American or live in America. I see he had to sell off his assets to pay for health care.
...in 5 4 3 2 1.
Slashdotters won't know what to make of this. Do they focus on the geeky, or focus on the boobies?
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There, fixed that for ya... unless of course you meant for /.ers to start queuing to make lesbian jokes...
Ackerman was always known as a big-hearted, genuinely decent guy in addition to being a huge science fiction/fantasy fan. Stories of the parties, comings and goings and general happy weirdness at his house were legend.
He'll be missed.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
no joke. american healthcare industry would take everything except your soul to treat a mere sneeze.
Read radical news here
And this "lesbian fiction" is found where today?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
From TFA:
"Famous Monsters of Filmland ceased publication in 1983, but returned a decade later with Ray Ferry as publisher and Ackerman as editor. Ackerman, however, reportedly had a falling out with Ferry and left the magazine. Years of litigation followed. In 2000, after a civil trial, Ackerman won a trademark infringement and breach-of-contract lawsuit against Ferry, though he said a year later that he had not yet collected a penny of the judgment.
In recent decades, according to a 2003 Times story, Ackerman slowly sold pieces of his massive collection in order to survive. Because of health problems and his still-unresolved legal battle, he put up all but about 100 of his favorite objects for sale in 2002.
The same year, he moved out of the Ackermansion and into a bungalow in the flats of Los Feliz. But he continued to make what was left of his collection available for fans to view on Saturday mornings."
It appears as though he was also involved in a legal battle as well which the article seems to imply he never received the money owed to him. I wonder if that was at all costly. There's also no mention of him actually selling his house either and the article's statement that people could still view what remained of his collection leads me to believe that he still owns the house. The article also mentions that his collection consisted of some 300,000 objects. I have no way of knowing how valuable any of those objects is on average or how valuable the 100 or so he sold were, but it seems that the vast majority of his collection is still intact. All of this leads me to assume he was still in possession of a considerable amount of wealth.
Of course don't let this get in the way of taking a swipe at the American healthcare industry.
Posting for fixing grammar is never going to affect a person's grammar.
The first link in the summary refers to him as Forrest J. Ackerman, and that's wrong. There is no period after the J as you can see in the Wikipedia article. Yes, I know that Wikipedia isn't always right, but it is this time. I was fortunate to have met him a few times, and hear him speak, and 4E always insisted on having his name spelled correctly. If you want to abbreviate, 4SJ will be just fine, ThankYouVeryMuch.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Think a penny a word.
A quarter cent a word for anything that might be difficult or impossible to sell over the counter.
Payment on publication, at least in theory.*
Still, you had a realistic chance of placing your stories somewhere.
If you were sufficiently talented and adroit, you might chance submitting a story with strong sexual themes to a magazine like The New Yorker.
But not every writer is destined to reach such heights.
* - If you were being paid on acceptance, you were writing for the Saturday Evening Post, your stories were in production by MGM, and ground was being broken for your new house in Conneticut.
;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Sad, sad, sad. I met him a couple of times at Esperanto gatherings (the Zamenhof banquet in Berkley) and he was always a welcome and witty character.
Another one bites the dust. We just lost Ursula K. Leguin last month, Robert Asprin this past May, Arthur C. Clarke in March. No more chances to chat with them at cons anymore!
The term "sci-fi" was an alliterative way of honoring Hugo Gernsback, one of the early SF editors, who was also very much into radio and coined the term "Hi-Fi". Forry was trying to come up with a catchy title, and he did.
Most TruFen - hard-core science fiction enthusiasts - would pronounce it "Skiffy", though.
See 'ya on the other side, Forry, we'll miss you!
Do forgive me, but I do not believe that, other than in Hollywood blockbusters and US presidentiale election propaganda, people are either all good, Yoda-like, or all bad. Forry, who used to give paraphernalia (he gave me too) with the combination "4E" (pronounced by Americans "Forry"), was in my opinion a mostly decent and very cordial fellow fan. I met him at the World Science Fiction Convention in The Hague, Netherlands, in 1990, and we must have talked for at least half an hour, during which he managed to convey a number of very interesting and/or funny anecdotes, he did not behave at all arrogantly and he was most courteous. I have met in my life many SOBs (at that convention for instance there was an obnoxious Aussie fan, who managed to attract, by his vulgarity, drunkenness and hate-loaded speech mannerism, the unanimous detestation of the attendees), and I know a few symptoms. Forry exhibited none. That is all I can say. R.I.P.
The Force actually is with me.