Death of Forrest J. Ackerman

It's been announced that legendary science fiction fan Forrest J. Ackerman died from heart failure on 4 December. He was 92.

Unfortunately, Ackerman will be memorialised mainly for inventing the horrible term "sci-fi", which seems to have won the memetic war as an abbreviation for "science fiction". There was, however, a lot more to him than that. He was a great collector of science fiction and science fiction memorabilia, and a long-time leader in the community of science fiction fandom, dating back to the early decades of last century. He was an incredibly active editor and agent - helping the early careers of many of the genre's biggest names, among them, Ray Bradbury (not to mention the notorious L. Ron Hubbard). He had many publishing credits as a creative writer (often in collaboration with others), and made cameo appearances in a large number of science fiction movies. Ackerman's enormous productivity made him the most important and famous fan in the entire history of the genre; there will never be another like him.

I didn't know him personally, but he will be greatly missed by many, many people. My sincere condolescences to his loved ones.