They’re dropping like Sci-Flies!

First it was Michael Crichton. The man who wrote Jurassic Park and The Andromeda Strain - and may or may not have hired ghost writers to churn out some more recent pieces like Next - has passed on. (Don’t get mad at me about the ghost writers comment. I’m just repeating gossip. The fact that a lot of people didn’t think his latest works were his best only makes it jucier.)

Now Forrest Ackerman is gone, too. He is credited with having coined the term ‘sci-fi’ and finding such literary sci-fi greats as Ray Bradbury. He had a huge collection of, shall we say, paraphernalia and opened his home to the public, like a museum, every Saturday.

I have to assume the man believed in forces beyond this world in order to throw open his doors once a week and believe that the visitors wouldn’t do his things any harm. And that his wife wouldn’t do him any harm, either. And, no, it wasn’t his wife that killed him. I think.

I have to admit that all this has me nervous. Something is after sci-fi writers. So I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Crichton, Ackerman . . . (It’s sci-fi, three shoes is appropriate.)

I find myself looking over my shoulder in public places. I mean what about all the smaller authors that maybe don’t make national news? What’s their morbidity rate? And why isn’t anyone putting the clues together!?!?!?

Please excuse my outburst. I’m sorry. I just let my imagination get a little carried away for a minute, there.

But that’s okay. It really isn’t about me is it? I mean, after all, I write thrillers. I get that it’s a fine line of distinction, but it’s one I’m hoping will keep me alive through the coming dark times for sci-fi writers.

I have to say that I am sorry to see Crichton and Ackerman go. They were the giants who founded the industry and they leave a grand legacy that someone among us will have to step up to carry on. But it seems the even the grand masters themselves were not able to defy science and medicine in the end. Or were they . . .