Wow. Okay, folks, this is it...a day I honestly never thought would come. Jack Williamson, aka "The Dean of Science Fiction" passed away on Friday, Nov 10th, at the age of 98. The man published his first story - "The Metal Man" - in Amazing Stories in 1928. When his family moved to New Mexico in 1915, they did so by covered wagon. This is a giant of the SF field. He wrote over fifty novels, the most recent of which was published in 2005. And honestly - for a writer - what better way is there to leave this Earth than to do so still able to pursue the craft you love? The man was and is a giant in the SF field - much of what he wrote shaped what SF has become, and what it will become. He was the second person in the field to ever receive the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award - the first was Robert A. Heinlein. Williamson may not have been the greatest SF writer, but for a man to create so much influential work in one lifetime...you can't help but admire him.

It is strange to think of SF without him...it was almost as though he would live forever.

Regarding funeral arrangements, Locus Online stated that "Memorial services will be 16 Nov at 2 p.m. in the Campus Union Building ballroom of ENMU in Portales; in lieu of flowers, the family has asked that contributions be made to the The Jack and Blanche Williamson Scholarship Fund, ENMU Foundation, Eastern New Mexico University, Station #8, Portales NM 88130"