American science fiction writer (1923–2001)
Gordon Rupert Dickson (November 1, 1923 – January 31, 2001) was an American science fiction writer. He was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2000.
Biography.
Dickson was born in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1923. After the death of his father, he moved with his mother to Minneapolis in 1937. He served in the United States Army, from 1943 to 1946, and received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Minnesota, in 1948. From 1948 through 1950 he attended the University of Minnesota for graduate work. His first published speculative fiction was the short story "Trespass!", written jointly with Poul Anderson, in the Spring 1950 issue of "Fantastic Stories Quarterly" (ed. Sam Merwin), the inaugural number of "Fantastic Story Magazine" as it came to be titled. Next year three of his solo efforts were published by John W. Campbell in "Astounding Science Fiction" and one appeared in "Planet Stories". Anderson and Dickson also inaugurated the Hoka series with "The Sheriff of Canyon Gulch" ("Other Worlds Science Stories", May 1951).
Dickson's series of novels include the Childe Cycle (sometimes called the Dorsai series) and the Dragon Knight. He won three Hugo Awards and one Nebula Award.
For a great part of his life, he suffered from the effects of asthma. He died of complications from severe asthma.
Personality.
John Clute has characterized Dickson as a "gregarious, engaging, genial, successful man of letters" who had not been an introvert. Clute considers Dickson a "science fiction romantic". Nevertheless, Clute stresses in connection to Dickson that science fiction welcomes "images of heightened solitude, romantically vague, limitless landscapes, and an anguished submission to afflatus", due to its origin in Gothic fiction.
Style.
Clute has pointed out that Dickson, like Poul Anderson, with whom he collaborated in the "Hoka series", "[tends] to infuse an austere Nordic pathos into wooded, rural midwestern American settings." His works often have mercenaries as their protagonists and deal with aliens that are "less deracinated and more lovable than humans". They "are inclined to take on a heightened, sagalike complexion", particularly by the insertion of lyric poetry that is sometimes inferior.
Archival materials.
In 1974 Dickson donated to the Manuscripts Division of the University of Minnesota Libraries notes, outlines, and drafts for more than 240 short stories and 36 novels and novelettes. These included materials for "Alien Art", "The Outposter", "The Pritcher Mass", "None But Man", and "Soldier Ask Not". They were made available to researchers without restriction.
Awards.
Dickson received the 1977 Skylark —Edward E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction from NESFA— for his contribution to SF and he was inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2000.
He won several annual literary awards for particular works.
References.
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Works cited.
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Further reading.
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