Weird Tales sorrowfully reports the passing of editor emeritus George H. Scithers, our longtime teacher and friend.

George passed away April 19 at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, from complications following a heart attack suffered the morning of April 17. He was 80. He had been in declining health for the last few years, due to complications from diabetes and a heart condition. He is survived by a number of cousins.

George was honored with four Science Fiction Achievement Awards (a.k.a. the “Hugo Awards” bestowed annually by the World Science Fiction Convention): twice for his editorship of the fanzine Amra and twice for his editorship of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. He also received the World Fantasy Award for his work at Weird Tales.

George Scithers’s ashes were buried in Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday, June 2.  The military ceremony included a twent-one-gun salute and a color guard who formally folded the flag and presented it to  Larry Fiege, George’s life companion. A West Point graduate who served in the Signal Corps for twenty-one years, George served in the Korean War.

Personal condolences may be sent to Larry Fiege, 218 Blandford St., Rockville, MD 20850-2629. Remembrances of George’s life in the SF community may be sent to letters@weirdtales.net.

The 85th anniversary issue of Weird Tales features our big list of “The 85 Weirdest Storytellers of the Past 85 Years.” We’re breaking it down online, too: one honoree per day, in no particular order, for 85 days!

The original Weird Tales power couple, CATHERINE L. MOORE (1911–1987) & HENRY KUTTNER (1915–1958) met and married after Kuttner, not knowing C.L. Moore was a woman, wrote “him” a fan letter that was printed in WT’s letters/editorial column, “The Eyrie.” Moore’s heroine Jirel of Joiry was the first female protagonist in the sword-and-sorcery genre, not to mention the source for the classic WT cover “The Black God’s Kiss.” Kuttner &  Moore’s story “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” was just Hollywoodized last year as The Last Mimzy.

The March/April 85th anniversary issue of Weird Tales features our big list of “The 85 Weirdest Storytellers of the Past 85 Years.” We’re breaking it down online, too: one honoree per day, in no particular order, for 85 days!

As editor of the British science fiction magazine New Worlds through the second half of the 1960s, MICHAEL MOORCOCK (1939– ) shepherded in a younger, weirder generation of authors more interested in straddling, crossing, and breaking literary boundaries than in defining them. And as creator of the dark, moody epic fantasy anti-hero Elric of Melniboné, Moorcock offered the new wave of readers a brooding, angst-ridden — dare we say emo? — mage-warrior-king whose fallibilities they could identify with.

The March/April 85th anniversary issue of Weird Tales features our big list of “The 85 Weirdest Storytellers of the Past 85 Years.” We’re breaking it down online, too: one honoree per day, in no particular order, for 85 days!

For a guy who never traveled far from his home in Cross Plains, Texas, ROBERT E. HOWARD (1906-1936) had an uncanny ability to conjure believably authentic realms of the unearthly — as if he was tapped into Jung’s archetypal consciousness, or drawing on his own past lives, or race memory. A world-builder of the highest order as well as the prince of adventure, Howard gave us stories and characters — from Conan the Barbarian to Solomon Kane — that tasted of truly weird flavors.

What’s new: The long-awaited Age of Conan MMORPG goes live next month. Dark Horse Comics announces new Solomon Kane series. A special deal on the original Solomon Kane stories in hardcover.