John Stewart Williamson (April 29, 1908 – November 10, 2006) was an American science fiction writer, one of several called the "Dean of Science Fiction".Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, November 1979, editorial "The Dean of Science Fiction" by Isaac Asimov, page 6. He is also credited with one of the first uses of the term genetic engineering."Jack Williamson, Greg Bear: Two SFWA pillars honored with 2006 Heinlein Award" . SFWA Pressbook. Retrieved 2007. Early in his career he sometimes used the pseudonyms Will Stewart and Nils O. Sonderlund.
Early life Williamson was born April 29, 1908, in Bisbee, Arizona Territory. According to his own account, the first three years of his life were spent on a ranch at the top of the Sierra Madre Mountains on the headwaters of the Yaqui River in Sonora, Mexico. He spent much of the rest of his early childhood in western Texas. In search of better pastures, his family migrated to rural New Mexico in a horse-drawn covered wagon in 1915.Williamson, Jack. Wonder's Child: My Life in Science Fiction (Benbella Books, 2005) The farming was difficult there and the family turned to ranching, which they continue to this day near Pep. He served in the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II as a weather forecaster.
Writing career
As a child Williamson enjoyed storytelling to his brother and two sisters. As a young man, he discovered the magazine Amazing Stories, established in 1926 by Hugo Gernsback, after answering an ad for one free issue. He strove to write his own fiction and sold his first story to Gernsback at age 20: "The Metal Man" was published in the December 1928 issue of Amazing. During the next year Gernsback published three more of his stories in the new pulp magazines Science Wonder Stories and Air Wonder Stories, and separately published "The Girl from Mars" by Miles J. Breuer and Williamson as Science Fiction Series #1. His work during this early period was heavily influenced by A. Merritt,Moskowitz, Sam. "Jack Williamson: Four-Way Pioneer". Amazing Stories, October 1964. author of The Metal Monster (1920) and other fantasy serials. Noting the Merritt influence, Algis Budrys described "The Metal Man" as "a story full of memorable images"."Galaxy Bookshelf", Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1967, p. 190.
Early on, Williamson became impressed by the works of Miles J. Breuer and struck up a correspondence with him. A doctor who wrote science fiction in his spare time, Breuer had a strong talent and turned Williamson away from dreamlike fantasies towards more rigorous plotting and stronger narrative. Under Breuer's tutelage, Williamson sent Breuer outlines and drafts for review. Their first work together was the novel Birth of a New Republic in which Moon colonies were undergoing something like the American Revolution, a theme later taken up by many other SF writers, particularly in Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.
Wracked by emotional storms and believing many of his physical ailments to be psychosomatic, Williamson underwent psychiatric evaluation in 1933 at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, in which he began to learn to resolve the conflict between his reason and his emotion. From this period, his stories take on a grittier, more realistic tone.
By the 1930s, he was an established genre author, and the teenaged Isaac Asimov was thrilled to receive a postcard from Williamson, whom he had idolized, which congratulated him on his first published story and offered "welcome to the ranks".Isaac Asimov, In Memory Yet Green, Chapter 20, section 7 Williamson remained a regular contributor to the pulp magazines but did not achieve financial success as a writer until many years later.
An unfavorable review of his novel Seetee Ship, which said his writing "ranks only slightly above that of a comic strip adventure", brought Williamson to the attention of The New York Sunday News, which needed a science fiction writer for a new comic strip. Williamson wrote the resulting strip Beyond Mars (1952–55), loosely based on Seetee Ship, until the paper dropped all comics.
Beginning 1954 and continuing into the 1990s, Williamson and Frederik Pohl wrote more than a dozen science fiction novels together, including the series Jim Eden, Starchild, and Cuckoo. Williamson continued to write as a nonagenarian and won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards during the last decade of his life, by far the oldest writer to win those awards.
In his later years, he criticized attempts to write "serious" science fiction:Science Fiction Studies - An Interview with Jack Williamson
Academic career Williamson received his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees in English in the 1950s from Eastern New Mexico University (ENMU) in Portales (near the Texas panhandle), joining the faculty of that university in 1960. He remained affiliated with the school for the rest of his life. In the late 1990s, he established a permanent trust to fund the publication of El Portal, ENMU's journal of literature and art. In the 1980s, he made a sizable donation of books and original manuscripts to ENMU's library, which resulted in the formation of a Special Collections department; the library now is home to the Jack Williamson Science Fiction Library, which ENMU's website describes as "one of the top science fiction collections in the world"."Jack Williamson Science Fiction Library". Golden Library Special Collections. Eastern New Mexico University (ENMU). Retrieved 2017. In addition, Williamson hosted the Jack Williamson Lectureship Series, an annual lectureship where Guests of Honor and other noted authors give lectures, read from their works, and participate in lively panel discussions on a variety of topics.Jack Williamson Lectureship The lectureship is still celebrated at ENMU each year. The Jack Williamson Liberal Arts building houses the Languages & Literature, Mathematical Sciences, History, Religion & Social Sciences, and Psychology & Political Science Departments of the university, as well as the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean's Office.
Williamson completed his PhD in English literature at the University of Colorado in Boulder, focused on H. G. Wells' earlier works, demonstrating that Wells was not the naive optimist that many believed him to be.
Neologisms and other firsts Williamson coined the word "terraforming" in a science-fiction story published in Astounding Science Fiction in 1942.
In 1947, Williamson was the first science fiction writer to incorporate the concept of the ion thruster into a published story.Williamson, Jack (March 1947), "The Equalizer"; Astounding Science Fiction. This technology was first successfully tested by NASA in 1964, first used in a space mission in 1998, and has become routine for space probes.
The word "psionics" first appeared in print in Williamson's novella The Greatest Invention,Williamson, Jack (July 1951), The Greatest Invention, Astounding Science Fiction, pp. 56–96. published in Astounding magazine in 1951.Nevala-Lee, Alec (2018), Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction, New York: Dey Street Books/HarperCollins, p. 303 and n. p. 470. Nevala-Lee's text has 1950, but his citation has the correct date (1951).
Williamson is also credited with one of the first uses of the term "genetic engineering"."Jack Williamson, Greg Bear: Two SFWA pillars honored with 2006 Heinlein Award" . SFWA Pressbook. Retrieved 2007.
Later years The Science Fiction Writers of America named Williamson its second Grand Master of Science Fiction after Robert Heinlein, presented 1976.
Having been let go from ENMU during the university's financial crisis in 1977, Williamson spent some time concentrating on his writing, but after being named professor emeritus by ENMU, he was coaxed back to co-teach two evening classes, "Creative Writing" and "Fantasy and Science Fiction" (he pioneered the latter at ENMU during his full-time professorship days). Williamson continued to co-teach these two classes into the 21st century. After he made a large donation of original manuscripts and rare books from his personal collection to the ENMU library, a special collections area was created to house these and it was named the "Jack Williamson Special Collection".
In 1994 Williamson received a World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement.
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted Williamson in 1996, its inaugural class of two deceased and two living persons.
The Horror Writers Association conferred its Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1998 and the World Horror Convention elected him Grand Master in 2004.
In November 2006, Williamson died at his home in Portales, New Mexico, at age 98.Terry, Karl (November 11, 2006). "Sci-fi legend Williamson dies". Portales News-Tribune. Retrieved 2007. Despite his age, he had made an appearance at the Spring 2006 Jack Williamson Lectureship and published a 320-page novel, The Stonehenge Gate, in 2005.
Minor planet 5516 Jawilliamson is named in his honor.
Legion of Space series
While attending a Great Books course, Williamson learned that Henryk Sienkiewicz had created one of his works by taking The Three Musketeers of Alexandre Dumas and pairing them with John Falstaff of William Shakespeare. Williamson took this idea into science fiction with The Legion of Space.
Desperate for money, he searched for a quick source of income. While most pulps of the time were slow to pay, the recently restarted Astounding was an exception. However, they did not accept novels, so Williamson submitted three short stories and a novelette. Learning that they were also accepting novels for serialization, he sent in The Legion of Space, which was published as a serialization in six parts. It quickly became a genre favorite, and was quickly collected into a hardcover.
The story takes place in an era when humans have colonized the Solar System but dare not go farther, as the first extra-solar expedition to Barnard's Star failed and the survivors came back as babbling, grotesque, diseased madmen. They spoke of a gigantic planet, populated by ferocious animals and the single city left of the evil "Medusae". The Medusae bear a vague resemblance to jellyfish, but are actually elephant-sized, four-eyed, flying beings with hundreds of tentacles. The Medusae cannot speak and communicate with one another via a microwave code.
The Falstaff character is named Giles Habibula. He was once a criminal, and can open any lock ever made. In his youth he was called Giles The Ghost. Jay Kalam (Commander of The Legion) and Hal Samdu are the names of the other two warriors. In this story, these warriors of the 30th Century battle the Medusae, the alien race from the lone planet of Barnard's Star. The Legion itself is the military and police force of the Solar System after the overthrow of an empire called the Purple Hall that once ruled all humans.
In this novel, renegade Purple pretenders ally themselves with the Medusae as a means to regain their empire. But the Medusae, who are totally unlike humans in all ways, turn on the Purples, seeking to destroy all humans and move to the Solar System, as their own world, far older than Earth, is finally spiraling back into Barnard's Star. One of the Purples, John Ulnar, supports the Legion from the start, and he is the fourth great warrior. His enemy is the Purple pretender Eric Ulnar, who sought the Medusae out in the first place, seeking to become the next Emperor of The Sun.