Neil GaimanRobert Sheckley died on this day 17 years ago. He was a brilliant, witty writer, one of the finest short story writers of Science Fiction, an inspiration to Douglas Adams. His grave is near me and I clean the weeds off when I pass.
John Shirley@neilhimself Bob Sheckley was a good friend of mine. He even married my wife--that is, he married the woman who had recently been my wife. We hung out a lot in Portland. He was a unique artist. Very funny guy too.
@JohnShirley2023 was that Jay?
@neilhimself Oh yes, indeed. Jay. I am a veteran of Jay. We veterans of Jay meet once a year. We wear special caps and give each other medals.
@JohnShirley2023 I remember Jay overseeing a signing I did at Dark Carnival long ago, and I have forgotten so many signings, but that one lives on in my brain...
@neilhimself Ha! I bet! She had one for Fritz Leiber that infuriated him. The threw herself on his coffin at his funeral. Well, she has her points, which I can't discuss online. Bless her heart, in recent years she went through a terrible struggle with throat cancer and didn't come out of it unscathed. She and Katherine Dunn ("Geek Love" et al) and I were a trio of pals in Portland; I dated Katherine for a while but married Jay because she thought it a good idea.
@JohnShirley2023 I'm so sorry to hear about her struggles. She certainly made the world more interesting. And (sigh) Katherine Dunn. What an astonishing writer.
@neilhimself Katherine chain-smoked hand-rolled cigarettes of the very cheapest tobacco. She could roll them without looking, while talking to me and looking right at me. She was much more mature than me and was very kind and patient. We were in poetry slams together and then I read the ms of Geek Love. I don't remember what i said except I was really impressed by it. Her earlier novels are very interesting too. They're like hyper-real. Anyway the cigarettes gave her terminal cancer.
@JohnShirley2023 It's the ones we didn't have to lose that hurt the most. Kathy Acker didn't have to go the way she went. She could be around now, in her 70s, if she hadn't decided to go the fruit juice cure for cancer way.
@neilhimself Yes I knew Kathy A quite intimately. She was into steroid body building (really!) before people started to see the risks. It affected her state of mind, in that partof her life, and might've triggered her cancer. I was dismayed when she went to the "alternative" cancer thing and sure enough, it killed her.
@JohnShirley2023 I think she knew the risks on Steroids. At least, she knew it was dangerous to take them but she loved being part of the bodybuilding subculture. At least that was the way that I took it from what she said.