A. E. van Vogt

Alfred Elton van Vogt (/væn voʊt/; April 26, 1912 – January 26, 2000) was a Canadian-born science fiction author regarded as one of the most popular, influential, and complex science fiction writers of the mid-twentieth century: the Golden Age of the genre.

Early life and writings

Van Vogt was born on a farm in Edenburg, a Russian Mennonite community east of Gretna, Manitoba, Canada. Until he was four years old, van Vogt and his family spoke only a dialect of Low German in the home. Van Vogt's father, a lawyer, moved his family several times and his son found these moves difficult, remarking in later life:

After starting his writing career by writing for true-confession style pulp magazines such as True Story, van Vogt decided to switch to writing something he enjoyed, science fiction. This happened after he casually picked up the August 1938 issue of Astounding Science Fiction from a newsstand and found the story "Who Goes There?" The story inspired him to write "Vault of the Beast", which he sent to the same magazine. It was rejected, but the rejection letter encouraged him to try again. He then sent in a new story called "The Black Destroyer," which was accepted. A rewritten version of "Vault of the Beast" would be published in 1940.

Harlan Ellison

Harlan Jay Ellison (born May 27, 1934) is an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction.

His published works include over 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, comic book scripts, teleplays, essays, a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media. He was editor and anthologist for two science fiction anthologies, Dangerous Visions (1967) and Again, Dangerous Visions (1972). Ellison has won numerous awards including multiple Hugos, Nebulas and Edgars.

Early life and career

Ellison was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on May 27, 1934, the son of Serita (née Rosenthal) and Louis Laverne Ellison, a dentist and jeweler. His family subsequently moved to Painesville, Ohio, but returned to Cleveland in 1949, following his father's death. Ellison frequently ran away from home, taking an array of odd jobs—including, by age 18, "tuna fisherman off the coast of Galveston, itinerant crop-picker down in New Orleans, hired gun for a wealthy neurotic, nitroglycerine truck driver in North Carolina, short order cook, cab driver, lithographer, book salesman, floorwalker in a department store, door-to-door brush salesman, and as a youngster, an actor in several productions at the Cleveland Play House".