The Best of Lester Del Rey by Lester del Rey

In the 1990s, as younger authors began to reshape the genre, the imprint became less dominant.Īs a fiction writer, Del Rey had a a relatively short career, though a prolific one. The success of Del Rey Books, as a publisher of commodity fiction, seemed symptomatic of a general 1980s sense that science fiction had begun to age prematurely. In a way this is his story, too.įor good or for ill, Lester and Judy-Lynn Del Rey had helped transform an enclave enterprise into a marketing juggernaut in the process, it may be, they were also responsible in part for the loss of the genre's old biting edge, for they were not much interested in work which threatened the status quo. Pulp science fiction began in enthusiastic obscurity, soon turned into a secret tale of the future for thousands, and suddenly exploded into highly profitable, multi-media visibility over the last two decades of the century. Lester Del Rey was involved in the genre from the 1930s until a few months ago, and over the course of a highly successful life as writer and publisher became one of the figures who symbolised the life story of the form.

NOTHING more vividly emphasises the youngness of American science fiction than the deaths of those who ran it from the start. Ramon Felipe San Juan Mario Silvio Enrico Smith Heathcourt-Brace Sierra y Alvarez-del Rey y de los Verdes (Lester del Rey), writer and editor: born 2 June 1915 publications include Marooned on Mars 1952, The Mysterious Planet 1953, Police Your Planet 1956, Nerves 1956, Robots and Changelings 1958, Day of the Giants 1959, The Eleventh Commandment 1962, The Scheme of Things 1966, The Best of Lester del Rey 1978, The World of Science Fiction 1926-1976: the history of a subculture 1979 died.

The Best of Lester Del Rey by Lester del Rey