Tom Reamy

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Tom Reamy (1935-1977) was an award-winning American science fiction and fantasy author and important figure in science fiction fandom. Tom Reamy died prior to the publication of his first novel. His works are primarily dark fantasy.

Contents 1 Life and work 2 Works 3 Awards 4 External links

[edit] Life and work

Tom Reamy was born in 1935. During the mid to late-1960s he was active in the science fiction fanzine and convention culture. He was publisher of the fanzines Trumpet and Nickelodeon and was head of the publication division for MidAmeriCon (the 1976 World Science Fiction Convention), exerting a strong editorial influence, and also head of the Film Program department of that organization. He was also one of the founders of the Turkey City Writer's Workshop.

Reamy’s only novel, Blind Voices has earned critical comparisons with the works of Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, and Harlan Ellison. The novel deals with the arrival of a strange and wonderful “freak show” at a rural town in Kansas during the 1920s and its effects on the lives of the residents. While not as polished as those authors’ works, critics have regarded Blind Voices as an exceptional first novel, causing fans and critics to ponder how important a figure he could have become.

Other than Blind Voices, the only other book by Tom Reamy is a collection of his shorter fiction, San Diego Lightfoot Sue and Other Stories, also published posthumously. "San Diego Lightfoot Sue", the individual story, won a Nebula Award as the Best Novelette of 1975.

Reamy died of a heart attack in 1977 while working at his typewriter on stories for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. At the time of his death, Reamy and artist George Barr were working on a graphic novel version of Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword. The project languished after his untimely death.

[edit] Works

• Novels:
  • Blind Voices (1978)

• Collections:
  • San Diego Lightfoot Sue and Other Stories (1979)

• Anthologies containing stories by Tom Reamy:
  • Nebula Award Stories 10 (1975)
  • The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction #22 (1976)
  • Nebula Award Stories 11 (1976)
  • Sci-Fi Private Eye (1984)
  • A Treasury of American Horror Stories (1985)

• Short stories:
  • "Twilla" (1974)
  • "San Diego Lightfoot Sue" (1975)
  • "The Detweiler Boy" (1977)

[edit] Awards

• Nebula: Best Novelette nominee (1974) for "Twilla"
• Nebula: Best Novelette winner (1975) for "San Diego Lightfoot Sue"
• Hugo: Best Novelette nominee (1976) for "San Diego Lightfoot Sue"
• John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer: winner (1976)
• Nebula: Best Novel nominee (1978) for Blind Voices
• Hugo: Best Novel nominee (1979) for Blind Voices

[edit] External links

• Tom Reamy at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Tom Reamy at the Internet Movie Database
• Tom Reamy's online fiction at Free Speculative Fiction Online