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Damon Knight

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Template:Short description Template:Infobox writer

File:If 195501.jpg
Knight's novella "The Earth Quarter" was the cover story of the January 1955 issue of If
File:Galaxy 196304.jpg
Knight's novella "The Visitor at the Zoo" took the cover of the April 1963 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction

Damon Francis Knight (September 19, 1922 – April 15, 2002) was an American science fiction author, editor, and critic. He is the author of "To Serve Man", a 1950 short story adapted for The Twilight Zone.<ref name="DBTZ">Stanyard, Dimensions Behind the Twilight Zone, p. 51.</ref> He was married to fellow writer Kate Wilhelm.

Biography

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Knight was born in Baker City, 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 titled Snide.<ref name="oregonencyclopedia.org">Template:Cite web</ref>

Knight's first professional sale was a cartoon drawing to a science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories.<ref name=HC>Knight, "Knight Piece," Brian W. Aldiss & Harry Harrison, Hell's Cartographers, Orbit Books, 1976, p. 105.</ref> His first story, "The Itching Hour", appeared in the Summer 1940 number of Futuria Fantasia, edited and published by Ray Bradbury.<ref name="isfdb ..." /> "Resilience" followed in the February 1941 number of Stirring Science Stories, edited by Donald A. Wollheim.<ref name="isfdb ..." /> An editorial error made the latter story's ending incomprehensible;<ref name=SFWAGM3>Pohl, SFWA Grand Masters Volume Three, p. 202.</ref> it was reprinted in a 1978 magazine in four pages with a two-page introduction by Knight.<ref name="isfdb ..." />

At the time of his first story sale he was living in New York and was a member of the Futurians.<ref name=SFE3_DK/> 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".

Knight's forte was the short story; he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.<ref>Template:Cite book </ref> To the general public he is best known as the author of "To Serve Man", a 1950 short story adapted for The Twilight Zone.<ref name="DBTZ" /> It won a 50-year Retro-Hugo in 2001 as the best short story of 1950.<ref name="SFAwards" /> Knight was also 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."<ref name="oregonencyclopedia.org"/> He ceased reviewing when Fantasy & Science Fiction refused to publish his review of Judith Merril's novel The Tomorrow People.<ref name="budrys196712">Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> These reviews were later collected in In Search of Wonder.<ref name=SFE3_DK/>

Algis Budrys wrote that Knight and "William Atheling Jr." (James Blish) had "transformed the reviewer's trade in the field",<ref name="budrys196506">Template:Cite magazine</ref> in Knight's case "without the guidance of his own prior example".Template:R The term "idiot plot", a story that only functions because almost everyone in it is an idiot, became well known through Knight's frequent use of it in his reviews, though he believed the term was probably invented by Blish.<ref name="SOS">Gary K. Wolfe, "Coming to Terms", in Gunn & Candelaria, Speculations on Speculation, p. 18.</ref> Knight's only non-Retro-Hugo Award was for "Best Reviewer" in 1956.<ref name="SFAwards" />

Knight was the founder of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> cofounder of the National Fantasy Fan Federation,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> cofounder of the Milford Writer's Workshop,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and cofounder of the Clarion Writers Workshop.<ref name="SFE3_RSW">Template:Cite web</ref> The SFWA officers and past presidents named Knight its 13th Grand Master in 1994 (presented 1995). After his death, the associated award was renamed the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award in his honor.<ref name=SFAwards/><ref name=SFE3_DK/><ref name=SFWA/> The Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted him in 2003.<ref name=sfhof-old/>

Until his death, Knight lived in Eugene, Oregon, with his second wife, author Kate Wilhelm.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> His papers are held in the University of Oregon Special Collections and University Archive.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Selected works

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Novels

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Short stories and other writings

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  • "The Third Little Green Man" (1948)
  • "PS's Feature Flash" (1948)
  • "Not with a Bang" (1949)
  • "The Star Beast" (1949)
  • "To Serve Man" (1950)
  • "Ask Me Anything" (1951)
  • "Don't Live in the Past" (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)
  • "An Eye for a What?" (1957)
  • "The Enemy" (1958)
  • "Be My Guest" (1958)
  • "Eripmav" (1958)
  • "Idiot Stick" (1958)
  • "Thing of Beauty" (1958)
  • "To Be Continued" (1959)
  • "The Handler" (1960)
  • "Time Enough" (1960)
  • "Auto-Da-Fe" (1961)
  • A Century of Science Fiction (1962) (editor)
  • "The Visitor at the Zoo" (1963)
  • "The Big Pat Boom" (1963)
  • "An Ancient Madness" (1964)
  • God's Nose (1964)
  • Maid to Measure (1964)
  • "Shall the Dust Praise Thee?" (1967)
  • "Masks'" (1968)
  • "The Star Below" (1968)
  • I See You (1976)
  • Forever (1981)
  • O (1983)
  • Point of View (1985) (illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg)
  • Strangers on Paradise (1986)
  • Not a Creature (1993)
  • Fortyday (1994)
  • Life Edit (1996)
  • "Double Meaning"
  • "In the Beginning"

Literary criticism and analysis

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  • 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

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See also

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Notes

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References

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Sources

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