CalMeacham, RealityChuck, Wendell Wagner, Fenris, anyone…
William M. Lee wrote about six or seven science fiction short stories from 1962-1973 for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and would be totally forgotten today, save that in the November 1967 issue of F&SF he published A Message From Charity, which has beome a bit of a minor classic (thanks in part to it being adapted for The Twilight Zone (1980s version)). Like Daniel Keys and a couple of others one piece of work lifted him somewhat above obscurity.
But Google gives me little on him (understandably)–he lived in Pennsylvania and died somewhat young in the 1970s.
Anybody out there know anything more about him?
Thanks.
Sir Rhosis
I don’t know any more than you do. I may have read some of his stories (I do recall “A Message from Charity”), but that was before my time in the SF world.
The Internet Science Fiction Database has a list of his stories – the also appeared in Analog and Worlds of If. If you could dig up one of the issues with his stories in it, you might get some biographical info.
Heh. The intro to “A Message from Charity” complains that Lee provided no biographical information other than he was “a director of research” and the other stories I found give even less than that. Bet he used a pseudonym, too. Writing sf could be a positive handicap to employment in those days if you worked for a stuffy company.
What intro? Was his short fiction published in a single volume, or are you referring to the magazine appearance of “A Message From Charity”?
Thanks, and thanks, also, Chuck.
Sir Rhosis
The magazine intro. I checked the other f&sf appearances, along with a story reprinted in the Best from F&SF 18, though, and found the nothing I described.
One more thing, Exapno, are you saying “William M. Lee” was a pseudonym, or that Lee used a pseudonym on other writing that he did?
Thanks, again.
Sir Rhosis
I’m making a wild stab that “William M. Lee” may be a pseudonym, based solely on his secrecy about himself. “William Lee” was also the pseudonym that William Burroughs used for his early works. But I readily admit I have nothing sound behind the surmise.
Oh God, now I’m having visions of the sweet “A Message From Charity” as filtered through the mind that wrote “The Naked Lunch.” What a story that would make–Heaven knows what message Charity would have left for Peter in that version?
Help…
Sir Rhosis
Duhh…
I’m sorry. I never heard of him, never read the story, and haven’t even seen the TZ episode based on it. Sorry.
I’ll check Nicholls’ and Nicholls/Clutes science fiction Encyclopedias tonight. They’re pretty good at reporting on pseudonyms. But anything in them would probably have made its way onto the Internet by now…
The list of pseudonyms used in the Magazine Fantasy and Science Fiction does not include Lee, and it’s quite thorough – it lists names even if the person is using a nickname (e.g., Rudy Rucker, Larry Niven), and even covers authors with a single publication. So I think a pseudonym is unlikely.
Neither the early Nicholls nor the later Ncholls and Clute Encyclopedias of SF list a William . Lee as either a real name or pseudonym. Kinda surpriswing, since they list authors with even fewer credentials. There’s a Walter William Lee, but her doesn’t fit. And William S. Burroughs used “William Lee” as a pseudonym, but it’s not him.
Sorry.
I seem to remember that a writer had to have written at least one novel to be included in the Encyclopedia. William M. Lee only wrote a bare handful of short stories.
Again, thanks, everyone.
Sir Rhosis