Cyril M. Kornbluth

From Philosopedia

Cyril M. Kornbluth (23 July 1923 - 21 March 1958)

To those in the cognoscenti, Edward J. Bellin, Cecil Corwin,Walter C. Davies, Simon Eisner, Kenneth Falconer, S. D. Gottesman, and Jordan Park were all one person: Cyril Michael Kornbluth, an American science fiction author and Futurian.

Kornbluth grew up in New York City. As a teenager, he joined the Futurians - a group of sci fi writers and fans that included Isaac Asimov, Robert A. W. Lowndes, Frederik Pohl,and Donald A. Wollheim. It also included his future wife, Mary Byers, whom he married in 1943 - they had two sons, John and David.

He was the son of Samuel and Deborah Unger Kornbluth. After attending George Washington High School in Manhattan, he studied at the University of Chicago but left to serve in World War II as a heavy machine gunner, receiving a bronze star for his service during the Battle of the Bulge. Returning to Chicago to finish his education, he worked as editor for the Chicago bureau of Trans Radio Press, becoming in 1951 a full-time writer.

In poor health and being prescribed tranquilizers, he turned to alcohol and tobacco, dying of heart failure in Waverly, New York, at the age of 34. He had just been named the editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Posthumously in 1973, he was awarded the Hugo, the sci-fi award that was shared with Frederik Pohl (who completed much of Kornbluth's unfinished work and helped get it published).

Kornbluth was a freethinker and atheist. A fellow non-believer, Isaac Asimov, said of Kornbluth that "He was, perhaps, more brilliant than I was. . . ."

Selected Works

Mars Child (1951, novel)

Gunner Cade (1952, novel, with Judith Merril, as Cyril Judd)

Takeoff (1952, novel)

The Space Merchants (1953, novel, with Frederik Pohl)

The Syndic (1953, novel)

The Explorers (1954, short stories)

Search the Sky (1954, novel, with Frederik Pohl)

1954 Gladiator-at-Law (1954, novel, with Frederik Pohl)

The Mindworm and Other Stories (1955, short stories)

Not This August (1955, novel)

A Mile Beyond the Moon (1958, short stories)

Wolfbane (1959, novel, with Frederik Pohl)

Marching Morons (1959, short stories)

Sin in Space (1961, novel)

Best SF Stories of C.M. Kornbluth (1968, short stories)

The Best of C.M. Kornbluth (1976, short stories)

His Share of Glory (1997, short stories)