Howard Waldrop 1946-2024

January 20, 2024 7:54 AM

Howard Waldrop, award winning speculative fiction author of stories such as The Ugly Chickens and Night of the Cooters died on 14 January age 77. Waldrop was a true original and wrote many short stories that often played with alternative history or remixes of other SF and fantasy stories by drawing on a large and eclectic knowledge of history and genre. He never achieved wide popularity but he was well known and appreciated within the SFF community.

Obituary from Tor.com
Interview his friend Joe Lansdale
Strange Horizons introduction with pointers to more stories and links

posted by crocomancer (35 comments total)

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posted by Faint of Butt at 8:40 AM on January 20

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posted by Joey Michaels at 8:44 AM on January 20 [1 favorite]

I still remember his Them Bones from the second Ace Science Fiction Special series. That was an especially inventive time travel saga. This is sad to hear.
posted by y2karl at 9:42 AM on January 20 [5 favorites]

RIP to the undisputed king of high-concept story ideas.
posted by Gerald Bostock at 10:09 AM on January 20 [2 favorites]

"The Ugly Chickens" is the most fun and sad alternate history of the dodo that you'll ever read, for sure, and Waldrop always seemed to me to have a bemused, philosophical, resigned-but-not-bitter take on his own not-fame. RIP.
posted by mediareport at 10:12 AM on January 20 [9 favorites]

I have very fond memories of his Heart Of Whitenesse - a retelling of Heart of Darkness with Ben Jonson being sent up an icebound Thames to investigate, and deal with, an out of control Dr John Dee and his questionable methods.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 10:15 AM on January 20 [7 favorites]

One of the frustrating things about being a Howard Waldrop fan is how very very hard it is to find a lot of his work, even his most acclaimed work. The Ugly Chickens will probably be anthologized until people forget what the dodo is, but The Sawing Boys? Fin de Cycle? Mary Margaret Road-Grader? He worked heavily in the short-story format, back when you could still barely scrape a living from sales to magazines, and bupkis from submitting to fanzines, and a lot of work if it was collected at all lurks in long out-of-print collections.

His list of nominations is long, his list of wins is short

Steady, mon frère! Let us leave this place of wasted dreams.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 11:13 AM on January 20 [5 favorites]

I knew him, distantly. We were on some panels together, back in the day, and we corresponded a little bit. Shared a few meals. He was much closer to a SMOF friend of mine, so I heard a lot of second hand stories. He was always a delight — gloriously learned about so many obscure things, determined to tell the story the way he wanted to, happy to chat about almost anything, and deeply kind and humble. His stories were equally delightful, each one a puzzle of perspective. Not all of them worked or aged well, but they all did what they set out to do.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:36 AM on January 20 [11 favorites]

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I stumbled on the short story collection Night of the Cooters in a bookstore and bought it. I must've been 15 or 16. I absolutely loved it, but living on an island at the far end of the North Atlantic meant that finding more of his stories wasn't going to be easy. I did manage to track down the occasional story in an anthology, and they were always among my favorites. I don't have any on hand right now, but I'll read at least one of the stories I can find online, perhaps even the title story from that collection I had which Clarkesworld republished some years ago.
posted by Kattullus at 11:39 AM on January 20 [3 favorites]

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posted by dannyboybell at 12:00 PM on January 20

I've got the Strange Horizons in paperback, downstairs with all the other paperbacks I've been boxing up for a move that may never come. A favorite of that collection is He-We-Await, a tale of the last of the line of Egyptian Pharoahs, resurrected through genetic technology in the 20th century. Waldrop had to do a ridiculous amount of research to get it all right and he nailed it. Oh, and it does not end well for humanity.

RIP to a master of his craft.
posted by Ber at 12:11 PM on January 20 [3 favorites]

RIP to the master. I loved the novella "A Dozen Tough Jobs" though I don't know if it seems problematic today, it retells the Labours of Hercules in the American South.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 12:24 PM on January 20 [1 favorite]

Waldrop's short story "Fin de Cycle" (referenced here) is one of my all time favorite stories. Brilliant on so many levels
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:53 PM on January 20 [5 favorites]

Fin de Cycle is worth it alone just for the list of insults which have led to duels...
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 1:46 PM on January 20 [3 favorites]

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posted by adekllny at 2:30 PM on January 20

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posted by sammyo at 3:57 PM on January 20

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Howard Waldrop was an imaginative and expressive writer. I read Flying Saucer Rock & Roll in OMNI as a teenager, and from its first very energetic sentences I knew I had stumbled onto something special.
posted by lasagnaboy at 5:57 PM on January 20 [2 favorites]

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Free spec fiction has Mr. Goober's Show
posted by BlueHorse at 6:18 PM on January 20 [1 favorite]

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posted by aught at 6:19 PM on January 20

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posted by gudrun at 6:35 PM on January 20

Oh no.

"Night of the Cooters" is a hilarious Texas take on War of the Worlds.

Them Bones is a fantastic time travel story with a plea for a simple life.

So much talent.
posted by doctornemo at 6:44 PM on January 20 [1 favorite]

I worked with Howard at one of his day jobs in the early 80s. He was a everlasting source of information and entertainment. Quite a character.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 8:31 PM on January 20 [6 favorites]

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posted by Wobbuffet at 12:04 AM on January 21

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Aw heck. This hits close to home because his stories embody the sort of beautiful lunacy that makes me still like humanity. I've given his books as gifts because I wanted to share it.
posted by allium cepa at 12:56 AM on January 21 [3 favorites]

The Sawing Boys? Fin de Cycle? Mary Margaret Road-Grader? ...a lot of work if it was collected at all lurks in long out-of-print collections.

It's not quite that bad; "Mary Margaret Road-Grader" is in Howard Who?, reprinted in 2021 from Small Beer Press, and is also posted for free at Strange Horizons. And the other collections aren't *too* hard to find, though prices have gone up since Waldrop passed on: "The Sawing Boys" and lots of others are in Things Will Never Be The Same, which you can find used at Bookfinder.com (at inflated prices since his death) but is also available as a $9.95 ebook, and "Fin de Cycle" is in the Other Worlds, Better Lives long fiction collection and also available as a $9.95 ebook.
posted by mediareport at 5:29 AM on January 21 [3 favorites]

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posted by dragonplayer at 5:32 AM on January 21 [1 favorite]

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posted by trip and a half at 6:01 AM on January 21

One more note: Waldrop reminds me of the late, mad RA Lafferty.
posted by doctornemo at 7:04 AM on January 21 [3 favorites]

If you find someone whose shelves have both Waldrop and Lafferty, it's time to exchange emails.
posted by allium cepa at 3:06 AM on January 22 [2 favorites]

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posted by Archer25 at 12:05 PM on January 22

Here's H'ard's good buddy George R.R. Martin with his thoughts.

Here's H'ard's frequent movie critic colaborator Lawrence Person with more.

Damn you, 2024!
posted by Francis7 at 2:57 PM on January 22 [3 favorites]

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I never met him, but everyone i know who knew him has a story to tell.
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:57 AM on January 23 [1 favorite]

I forgot about the novel he wrote with Jake Saunders in 1974 - The Texas-Israeli War: 1999

"REBELLIOUS TEXANS HAVE KIDNAPPED THE PRESIDENT OF THE USA. HIS FUTURE- AND INDEED THE FUTURE OF THE COUNTRY- DEPENDS ON A BAND OF FEARLESS ISRAELIS WHOSE COURAGE HAS BEEN TESTED IN OTHER WARS!"
posted by thatwhichfalls at 7:38 AM on January 26

In a small consolation George RR Martin was working with him to make several short stories of his into short movies. Night of the Cooters is out all ready and the rough trailer for Mary Margret Road Grader was posted a few days ago.
posted by boilermonster at 9:42 PM on February 3 [6 favorites]

I would not have even known about it except I was tapped by the director to make the armor for the leads.
posted by boilermonster at 1:00 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]