Richard A. Lupoff | |
|---|---|
 Lupoff in 2013 | |
| Born | Richard Allen Lupoff (1935-02-21)February 21, 1935 Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Died | October 22, 2020(2020-10-22) (aged 85) Berkeley, California, U.S. |
| Pen name | Ova Hamlet Robert A. Mainline Ray Razzberry Addison Steele II Addison E. Steele A. E. Van Hocked |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Alma mater | University of Miami |
| Genre | Science fiction,mystery,horror |
| Notable works | |
| Spouse | Pat Lupoff |
Richard Allen Lupoff (February 21, 1935 – October 22, 2020) was an Americanscience-fiction andmystery author, who also wrote humor, satire, nonfiction and reviews. In addition to his two dozen novels and more than 40 short stories, he also edited science-fantasy anthologies. He was an expert on the writing ofEdgar Rice Burroughs, and had an equally strong interest inH. P. Lovecraft. He also co-edited the non-fiction anthologyAll in Color For a Dime (with Don Thompson), which has been described as "the very first published volume dedicated to comic book criticism";[1] as well as its sequel,The Comic-Book Book.[2]
Born February 21, 1935, inBrooklyn, New York, into aJewish family,[3] Lupoff studied at theUniversity of Miami, where he continued a career as a freelance journalist that began when he was 14.[4]
After completion of his degree and military service, Lupoff worked as a technical writer atSperry Univac for five years, then atIBM for seven years, where his duties centered on directing informational films.[4][5] The recession of the late 1970s caused him to return temporarily to employment in technology.[4]
He began his writing career inscience-fiction fandom in the early 1950s, producing eight mimeographed copies of his ownfanzine,SF52,[4] and later working on others, including reviews forAlgol and in the early 1960s, editingXero with his wife Pat andBhob Stewart.Xero's contributors includedDan Adkins,James Blish,Lin Carter,Avram Davidson,L. Sprague de Camp,Roger Ebert (then 19 years of age),Harlan Ellison,Ed Gorman,Eddie Jones,Roy G. Krenkel,Frederik Pohl, andBob Tucker; it received theHugo Award forBest Fanzine in 1963. In 2004, a hardcover anthology,The Best of Xero, coedited withPat Lupoff and featuring a nostalgic introduction by Ebert, was published byTachyon Publications. It was, in turn, nominated for the Hugo Award.[4]
Lupoff was an editor of Edgar Rice Burroughs for Canaveral Press, and in 1965, at the request of the company's owners, wrote a biography of Burroughs,Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure, his first book.[6]
He began publishing fiction in 1967 with the novelOne Million Centuries, and became a full-time writer in 1970.[4] His next novels wereSacred Locomotive Flies (1971) andInto the Aether (1974); he is credited with more than 50 books, plus short fiction, nonfiction, and memoirs. He sometimes wrote under pseudonyms, such as Addison E. Steele, which he used forBuck Rogers novels,[4] and Ova Hamlet, which he frequently used for parodies, collected inThe Ova Hamlet Papers in 1975.[7] Pastiche of other authors' styles and story settings and use of other authors and friends as characters are features of his writing.
Among his best-known novels are the duologyCircumpolar! (1984) andCountersolar! (1987). His novelSword of the Demon was nominated for the 1977Nebula Award.[8]Robert Silverberg described it as "a strange and austerely beautiful fable that cuts across genre lines."[9]
His short fiction, which has often been collected and anthologized, includes the 1973 short story "12:01 PM", which was adapted into both the Oscar-nominated short film12:01 pm (1990) and the TV movie12:01 (1993). Lupoff appeared in both films as an extra.[4][6] The major plot device is atime loop, and bears great similarity to that of 1993'sGroundhog Day. Lupoff and Jonathan Heap, director of the 1990 film, were "outraged" by the apparent theft of the idea, but after six months of lawyers' conferences, they decided to drop the case against Columbia Pictures.[4][6]
His novelette "After the Dreamtime" and his short story "Sail the Tide of Mourning" received Hugo Award nominations in 1975 and 1976.[8]Steve Stiles and his collaborativegraphic novelThe Adventures of Professor Thintwhistle and his Incredible Aether Flyer, originally a series ofcomic strips inHeavy Metal, is considered a forerunner ofsteampunk.[10][11]
Returning to full-time writing, he turned, instead, to mystery.The Comic Book Killer. published in 1988, has several sequels.[4] His first collection of short mystery stories isQuintet: The Cases of Chase and Delacroix (2008).
Starting in 1977, Lupoff co-hosted a program onPacifica Radio stationKPFA-FM inBerkeley, California, that featured book reviews and interviews, primarily with science-fiction and mystery authors. Originally an occasional one-hour program calledProbabilities Unlimited, after several months it became a regular weekly, half-hour program called simplyProbabilities, which aired until 1995, and was relaunched that year asCover to Cover; Lupoff left in 2001 to focus on his writing career, and the program was then again renamed toBookwaves. Among the notable authors interviewed by Lupoff and his co-host, Richard Wolinsky, wereRay Bradbury,Octavia Butler,Richard Adams,Ursula K. Le Guin, andKurt Vonnegut.[12]
Richard and Pat Lupoff were married from 1958 until her death in 2018, and had three children.[4][7] They lived in Westchester County and then in Manhattan,[6] and later in Northern California. He died in Oakland, CA on October 22, 2020.[7]
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| Date | Review article | Work(s) reviewed |
|---|---|---|
| December 2013 | Lupoff, Richard A. (December 2013). "Locus Looks at Books : Divers Hands".Locus (635): 23,53–54. |
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