David G. Hartwell, 1941-2016

[Randy M.]

According to Locus, David Hartwell died January 20. Mainly known now, I think, for his anthologies -- The Dark Descent; Masterpieces of Fantasy & Enchantment; The Space Opera Renaissance among many others -- and maybe as a founder and editor of The New York Review of Science Fiction, he was also editor for the Timescape line, Arbor House and Tor.

I think in the late 1970s and early 1980s a large number of the books I bought and read had his fingerprints on them. One of my pleasanter memories of conventions is of meeting him once for a couple of minutes at the World SF Con held in Chicago. I had read Black Easter/The Day After Judgement a summer or two before and eagerly bought the Gregg Press edition when I saw it in the hucksters room; he had edited and written the introduction for it and I asked for his autograph. He seemed genuinely surprised and pleased that anyone would ask for the editor's autograph.

And from all that's been said about him, he seems to have been a genuinely nice guy.This is an enormous loss for the sf/f/h community.


Randy M.

 

[Deep Space Nina]

I have known David in person. I met him at the Eurocon in Dublin. It was an odd accident, I have been there the day before the con started, had eaten nothing except the stupid half-sized chocolate bar on the plane and it was dinner time. So I was bugging all the people I knew a bit (I was travelling alone) if they want to have dinner with me and heard excuses. (Mainly that they have to wait for someone and cannot even estimate when this person will arrive ...) Then David whom I did not know before told me that he is going to have dinner with his children in the hotel bar. So well, at least one fan for a little chat. In fact I did not know that he was famous and successful, but we had a nice chat. Also his children (his youngest son and daughter) were really nice. They talked in a quite normal, casual way with me and I remember that his son showed me a funny pic on his phone he had taken at the airport.
Later when I got into the race for the TransAtlantic Fan Fund I have been nominated by David. And I won. So I saw him at the last Worldcon in August last year. We had a photo of the two of us taken:

 

[johnnyjet]

I got to know David Hartwell a little myself, since he always attended Pittsburgh, PA's Confluence convention. He was a very nice guy and will be missed by many.