Damon Knight

Damon Francis Knight (September 19, 1922 – April 15, 2002) was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.^[2] He was married to fellow writer Kate Wilhelm.

Life and career

Damon Knight was born in Baker, Oregon in 1922, and grew up in Hood River, Oregon. He entered science-fiction fandom at the age of eleven and published two issues of a fanzine entitled Snide. ^[3]

Knight's first professional sale was a cartoon drawing to a science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories.^[4] His first story, "The Itching Hour," appeared in the Summer 1940 number of Futuria Fantasia, edited and published by Ray Bradbury.^[1] "Resilience" followed in the February 1941 number of Stirring Science Stories, edited by Donald Wolheim.^[1] An editorial error made the latter story's ending incomprehensible;^[5] it was reprinted in a 1978 magazine in four pages with a two-page introduction by Knight.^[1] He is a Hugo Award winner,^[6][7][8] founder of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA),^[9] cofounder of the National Fantasy Fan Federation,^[10] cofounder of the Milford Writer's Workshop,^[11] and cofounder of the Clarion Writers Workshop.^[12] Until his death, Knight lived in Eugene, Oregon, with his wife Kate Wilhelm, also a writer of science fiction and of fantasy, contemporary mimetic and crime fiction.^[13]

At the time of his first story, he was living in New York, and was a member of the Futurians.^[14] One of his short stories describes paranormal disruption of a science fiction fan group, and contains cameo appearances of various Futurians and others under thinly-disguised names: For instance, non-Futurian sf writer H. Beam Piper is identified as "H. Dreyne Fifer".

In a series of reviews for various magazines, he became famous as a science fiction critic, a career which began when he wrote in 1945 that A. E. van Vogt "is not a giant as often maintained. He's only a pygmy who has learned to operate an overgrown typewriter."^[3] After nine years, he ceased reviewing when a magazine refused to publish one review exactly as he wrote it. These reviews were later collected in In Search of Wonder.^[14]

The SFWA officers and past presidents named Knight its 13th Grand Master in 1994 (presented 1995). After his 2002 death the associated award was renamed in his honor, the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award.^[6][14][15] The Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted him in 2003.^[16]

To the general public, he is best known as the author of "To Serve Man", a 1950 short story that was adapted for The Twilight Zone.^[17] It won a 50-year Retro Hugo in 2001 as the best short story of 1950, which predated the Hugo Awards.^[6][7] His only Hugo Award was the "Best Reviewer" in 1956.^[6][8]

Knight is also known for the term "idiot plot", a story that only functions because almost everyone in it is an idiot; the term was probably invented by James Blish, but became well-known through Knight's frequent use of it in his reviews.^[18]

His papers are held in the University of Oregon Special Collections and University Archive.^[19]

Selected works

Novels

• Hell's Pavement (1955)
• A for Anything (1961) (original version titled The People Maker, 1959)
• Masters of Evolution (1959)
• The Sun Saboteurs (1961)
• Beyond the Barrier (1964)
• Mind Switch (1965)
• The Rithian Terror (1965)
• The Earth Quarter (1970)
• World without Children (1970)
• The World and Thorinn (1980)
• The Man in the Tree (1984)
• CV (1985)
• The Observers (1988)
• Double Meaning (1991)
• God's Nose (1991)
• Why Do Birds (1992)
• Humpty Dumpty: An Oval (1996)

Short stories and other writings

• "Not with a Bang" (1949)
• "To Serve Man" (1950)
• "Ask Me Anything" (1951)
• "Cabin Boy" (1951)
• "Catch that Martian" (1952)
• "The Analogues" (1952)
• "Beachcomber" (1952)
• "Ticket to Anywhere" (1952)
• "Anachron" (1953)
• "Babel II" (1953)
• "Four in One" (1953)
• "Special Delivery" (1953)
• "Natural State" (1954)
• "Rule Golden" (1954)
• "The Country of the Kind" (1955)
• "Dulcie and Decorum" (1955)
• "You're Another" (1955)
• "This way to the Regress (1956)
• "Extempore" (1956)
• "The Last Word" (1956)
• "Stranger Station" (1956)
• "Dio" (1957)
• "The Dying Man" (1957)
• "The Enemy" (1958)
• "An Eye for a What?" (1957)
• "Be My Guest" (1958)
• "Eripmav" (1958)
• "Idiot Stick" (1958)
• "Thing of Beauty" (1958)
• "The Handler" (1960)
• "Time Enough" (1960)
• A Century of Science Fiction (1962) (editor)
• The Big Pat Boom (1963)
• God's Nose (1964)
• Maid to Measure (1964)
• "Shall the Dust Praise Thee?" (1967)
• Masks (1968)
• I See You (1976)
• Forever (1981)
• O (1983)
• Strangers on Paradise (1986)
• Not a Creature (1993)
• Fortyday (1994)
• Life Edit (1996)
• Double Meaning
• In the Beginning

Literary criticism and analysis

• In Search of Wonder (1956) (collected reviews and critical pieces)
• Creating Short Fiction (1981) (advice on writing short stories)
• Turning Points (editor/contributor: critical anthology)
• Orbit (editor)
• The Futurians (1977, memoir/history)

Short story collections

• Far Out (1961) (contains "To Serve Man")
• In Deep (1963) (contains "The Country of the Kind")
• Off Center (1965) (contains "Be My Guest")
• Turning On (1966)

See also

Notes

References

Citations

• Aldiss, Brian W.; Harrison, Harry (1976). Hell's Cartographers. London: Futura. ISBN 0-86007-907-4
• Gunn, James E.; Candelaria, Matthew (2005). Speculations on Speculation: Theories of Science Fiction. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-4902-X
• Pohl, Frederik (2002). The SFWA Grand Masters: Volume 3. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0-312-86876-6
• Stanyard, Stewart T. (2006). Dimensions Behind the Twilight Zone: A Backstage Tribute to Television's Groundbreaking Series. Chicago: ECW Press. ISBN 978-1-55022-744-4

External links

• Damon Knight biography at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame
• SFWA obituary for Damon Knight
• Locus NewsLog obituary for Damon Knight — April 2002; complete obituary forthcoming, Locus magazine, May 2002
• Damon Knight at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Damon Knight Papers at Syracuse University