Writer, publisher, and most especially editor George H. Scithers died 19 April 2010, after suffering a massive heart attack two days earlier. Born 14 May 1929 in Washington, DC, he started his sf career as a fanzine publisher in the 1950s. He won Hugo Awards for Best Fanzine—for Amra—in 1964 and 1968 (in its pages, he apparently coined the term “sword & sorcery”). His most lasting mark, however, will be as an editor (he won Hugos for Best Professional Editor in 1978 and 1980).
In the mid-1970s, after publisher Joel Davis convinced Isaac Asimov to allow his name to be used on a new science fiction magazine, Asimov chose Scithers to edit what was originally known as Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine (the title has since been modified to Asimov’s Science Fiction). Asimov’s name was on the cover, but it was Scithers’ tastes and editorial decisions that drove the magazine. Scithers stayed with IAsfm from its 1977 debut until 1982 (Kathleen Moloney succeeded him briefly, before Shawna McCarthy took over). Scithers left to take the helm of off-again, on-again Amazing Stories, which TSR had just purchased. He stayed with that magazine until 1986, which he was succeeded by Patrick Lucien Price. In 1987, Scithers joined forces with Darrell Schweitzer and John Betancourt to revive Weird Tales (which had last been published in 1983). In 1992, Scithers and Schweitzer shared a special World Fantasy Award for their work on the magazine. Later in the decade, they sold the magazine to DNA Publications, but stayed on as editors. Early in the 2000s, the magazine was again sold, to former co-editor Betancourt’s Wildside Press. In 2007, Ann VanderMeer was named the new editor, as the magazine was completely redesigned; Scithers stayed on as editor emeritus.
In addition to magazine work, Scithers edited many anthologies; some collections of his magazine work, and others original.
Scithers was also a sometime publisher: he launched specialty house Owlswick Press in 1973, which published his On Writing Science Fiction in 1981, as well as his pseudonymous spoof cookbook To Serve Man, which was inspired by Damon Knight’s story of the same name, and published as by Karl Würf in 1976. It wasn’t, however, a vanity press. Scithers also published books by the likes of Avram Davidson, L. Sprague de Camp, Larry Niven, and more. And for a time, he was a literary agent as the Owlswick Literary Agency.
Scithers’ mark as a writer is much less than his editorial impact, but his first professional story, “Faithful Messenger”, appeared in If in 1969. And he did manage to sell stories to editors John W. Campbell, Jr., Ben Bova, and Frederik Pohl.
He was the chairman of Discon I, the 1963 World Science Fiction Convention, and then the Fan Guest of Honor at the 2001 World Science Fiction Convention. He also won the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award in 2002.
Scithers is survived by a number of cousins. Weird Tales reports that “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 at weirdtales dot net for inclusion in an upcoming tribute issue.”
His career and mine crossed in several ways, but now that he’s gone, I realize I didn’t know as much about him as I should have. I joined the editorial staff at IAsfm seven years after he left, and we both worked on magazines under the DNA Publications logo for several years. We appeared on panels together at conventions, and he was generally a quiet, kind man. But when the discussion turned to something he knew about (such as editing), he was vociferous in defense of what he knew to be correct.