E C Tubb - RIP

[Johnlprobert]

Phil Harbottle has written his obituary here:

www.fantasticliterature.com/newsletter.htm#OBS

EC Tubb was never an author I read a lot of as his stuff was mainly SF, but I do remember his Space:1999 novelisations and I have the Sarob Press collection of the best of his short horror fiction. RIP ECT.

[Craig Herbertson]

Thanks for letting us know John. I was always a huge fan of Tubb. In fact I've reread six of his Dumarest series in the last few days. I asked him in a recent interview if there was a chance of another novel and he replied.

'I hope so.'

I never met him but I know he was a consummate professional who, many years ago, took time to give me some serious helpful advice. I'll miss him.

[severance]

Bloody hell, I'm reading one of his at the moment - always enjoyed his work.

[andydecker]

This is truly sad.

I am a big fan of his work. Have in fact just bought one of his Gladiator novels.

He was at a time very successful here in Germany insofar that most of his novels were published from the mid-fifties on. Some of them even in three different imprints in three different decades.

Some of his Dumarest novels are fine examples of the space opera and much better than todays bloated 800+ doorstoppers.

[andydecker]

Here are two old german Tubb editions.

The first one is a library edition. Before the success of the sf pulps there was a lively market for lines of library editions. There were up to 220 publishers doing all genres. There are supposed approx 1000 sf-titles published. Those hardcover editions were avaiable at news-vendors and special librarys, not for sale but for commercial lending only (In a difference from the public librarys which used to be free.) This died at the beginning of the seventies. Some of the later sf-pulps were first published here. This is a largely forgotten chapter of the german pulps.

Hell Planet, 1954, as "Twilight in Hell", ca. 1956

This is a mass-market of an paperback from Goldmann Publishing, 1968. The imprint was called Goldmann Weltraum Taschenbücher - Space Paperbacks.

Death is a dream, 1968, as "Cage of Time"

Tubb really knew how to write them, at a time when sf-writers only had their imagination to rely on.