AVRAM DAVIDSON : IN MEMORIAM
Avram Davidson died on May 8, 1993, of a heart attack, after having been
hospitalized with a bout of pneumonia ; he was seventy years old. Avram
had a strong presence in the pages of this magazine, making a string of
twenty-one sales to
Asimov's that started under George Scithers
and continued to the present day. He may be the only writer ever to win
the Hugo Award, the World Fantasy Award (including the prestigious Life
Achievement Award), and the Edgar Award. Avram was at his best at
short story length, and his short work has been collected in many volumes
-- including The Best of Avram Davidson, Or All the Seas with
Oysters, What Strange Stars and Skies,
Strange Seas and Shores,
and Collected Fantasies -- but his novels, although they may not
reach quite the level of accomplishment of the best of his short stories,
still contain much that is brilliant, engrossing, and fascinating, especially
the underrated Masters of the Maze, Rork!, Rogue D ragon,
and The Phoenix and the Mirror. His recent work was as strong or
stronger than ever, and his series of stories about the bizarre exploits
of Dr. Engelbert Eszterhazy (collected in the World Fantasy Award-winning
The Adventures of Doctor Eszterhazy and the strange adventures of
Jack Limekiller (as yet uncollected, alas) must rank among the best short
fantasies written by anyone in the last ten or fifteen years.
Avram was one of the most eloquent and individuals voices in science
fiction and fantasy, and there were few writers in any literary genre who
could match his wit, his erudition, or the stylish elegance of his prose.
He was not always an easy man to work with, but I was one of the editors
who thought that his stories were worth every bit of the aggravation you
sometimes had to put up with in order to obtain them -- at his best, he
may have been one of the great short story writers of our times, and he
was certainly one of the Uniques, an absolutely individual voice and perspective
and mind; nobody other than Avram could possibly have written any of Avram's
stories, nor could you have possibly mistaken a line of Avram's prose for
the prose of any other writer, and that's something rare and valuable in
a day when some people aretrying to force fiction to be as bland and interchangeable
and "marketable" as possible. Avram fit no molds, and can not be replaced
he will be missed. The only comfort we can take f rom his death is that
his work survives, and will be there to speak to us in that unique,
instantly recognizable, quirky, intensely flavored voice every time we
open the page and read.
-- Gardner Dozois
Originally published in Asimov's, November 1993.
Reprinted with permission.
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