Robert Holdstock R.I.P.

[andydecker]

Robert Holdstock has passed away with 61 after a short illness. He wrote Fantasy and is most famous for his Mythago Wood novels, but he also wrote a lot of pseudonymus novels at the start of his career, like the horror series Night Hunter under the name Robert Faulcon.

This is sad news. I always liked his work, thought it often way ahead of the competition. Reading about his passing really threw me.

[allthingshorror]

Rob was a great man, only ever met him the once, but had a great rapport with him on the phone and by email over the last few years. He was immensley helpful with my Pan Horror stuff, and was shocked at my lack of interest in fantasy - so he turned me onto a few books which made me realise that the genre wasnt all that bad.

A genuine bear of a man, and a devastating loss to the many people who knew him or read his stuff. In tribute - read his short story The Quiet Girl from the Pan books, itll show you how so bloody talented he was.

[Calenture]

I'm dreadfully saddened to learn this, Che.

Aside from being a superb writer, Rob Holdstock, as some will know, was the guy who originally ran the BSFA's postal writer's forum, Orbiter. I wrote to him once asking to join it, and he wrote back saying I'd have to start it again first. He said he'd run it well for a year, badly for a year, not at all for a year. (Of course, I volunteered.)

Rob was studying tropical medicine; but then, in the BSFA's Vector, they reported that after having his first novel, Eye Among the Blind, published, he was taking the brave step of turning professional writer.

Rob never spoke of the novels which, thanks to Justin Marriott's Paperback Fanatic and the Vault, we now know he wrote; though one day he did mention in an Orbiter letter (he became a member after I took it over) that he was depressed at the pulp which was "glutting the market," and the way he was having to add to it to make a living. He said he'd just made himself sick writing one particularly violent scene, and wished he knew how to write Westerns, so that he wouldn't have to add to the rubbish appearing in the SF/Fantasy genre.

He was very strongly opinionated. When he said that he wished convicted murderers could be used for vivisection, one was never quite sure if he was joking, serious or playing Devil's Advocate.

He was an intense worker, and once suffered a period of amnesia through working at his writing non-stop far too long and too hard.

Basically, he was a hell of a guy. I still have some of his letters, and will always value the help he gave me with my own writing.

Rog