Grand Master James Gunn, 97, died December 23, 2020. Gunn was one of the field’s true polymaths, excelling as an SF author, editor, and scholar. Gunn served as President of Science Fiction Writers of America in 1971-1972 and the organization honored him with a Damon Knight Grand Master Award in 2006. He was inducted into the SF Hall of Fame in 2015.
James Edwin Gunn was born July 12, 1923 in Kansas City MO. He attended the University of Kansas, where he earned a BA in journalism and a master’s in English, though his education was interrupted by three years serving in the US Navy during WWII. He briefly worked at Western Printing in Racine WI on the Dell paperback line. After attending the 1952 Worldcon in Chicago, where he met Mack Reynolds, Clifford D. Simak, Jack Williamson, and his agent Frederik Pohl, among others, he began writing SF more seriously.