Mike Resnick-The Daily Ledger

Michael Diamond Resnick (; March 5, 1942 – January 9, 2020) was an American science fiction writer and editor. He won five Hugo awards and a Nebula award, and was the guest of honor at Chicon 7. He was the executive editor of the defunct magazine Jim Baen's Universe, and the creator and editor of Galaxy's Edge magazine.

Biography

Resnick was born in Chicago on March 5, 1942. He was a 1959 graduate of Highland Park High School in Highland Park, Illinois. He sold his first piece of writing in 1957, while still in high school. He attended the University of Chicago from 1959 to 1961 and met his future wife, Carol L. Cain, there. The couple began dating in mid-December 1960 and were engaged by the end of the month. They were married in 1961.

Mike Resnick

In the 1960s and early 1970s, Resnick wrote over 200 erotic adult novels under various pseudonyms and edited three men's magazines and seven tabloid newspapers. For over a decade he wrote a weekly column about horse racing and a monthly column about purebred collies, which he and his wife bred and showed. His wife was an uncredited collaborator on much of his science fiction and a co-author on two movie scripts they sold, based on his novels Santiago and The Widowmaker. His daughter Laura Resnick is a science fiction and fantasy author.

Mike Resnick

Resnick lived in Cincinnati from 1976 until his death following a battle with cancer on January 9, 2020.

Mike Resnick

Work and themes

Two notable motifs are evident in much of Resnick's science fiction work—his love of fable and legend. The other main subject of his work is Africa, especially Kenya's Kikuyu people, their history, traditions and culture and colonialism and its aftermath. He visited Kenya often and drew on his experiences there. Some of his science fiction stories are allegories of Kenyan history and politics; other stories are actually set in Africa or have African characters.

Resnick's style is known for its humor. He enjoyed collaborating with other writers, especially on short stories. Through to 2014 he had collaborated with 52 different writers on short fiction, three on screenplays, and three on novels. Late in life, he began writing and selling a series of mystery novels as well, featuring detective Eli Paxton. He had also sold screenplays based on his novels to Miramax, Capella, and Jupiter 9, and often had multiple properties under option to Hollywood studios.

His work has been translated into: French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Hebrew, Russian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Czech, Dutch, Latin, Swedish, Romanian, Finnish, Portuguese, Slovakian, Chinese, Catalan, Danish, Croatian, and Greek. Resnick's papers are in the Special Collections Library of the University of South Florida in Tampa.

Editing

Resnick worked as an editor for National Insider from 1966 to 1969, and also as editor-in-chief of National Features Syndicate from 1967 to 1968. He was a publisher and editor for Oligarch Press from 1969 onwards. From 1988 on Resnick edited over 40 fiction anthologies. He was an editorial consultant for BenBella Books from 2004 to 2006 and executive editor of Jim Baen's Universe from 2007 through 2010. From 2011 he was the series' editor for The Stellar Guild series published by Phoenix Pick. The series pairs lesser-known science fiction and fantasy authors with best-selling veterans of the genre. Beginning in 2013, he was the editor of the bi-monthly magazine Galaxy's Edge, published by Arc Manor, which reprints work by major names in the field along with new stories by new and lesser-known writers.

Fandom

Resnick and his wife were participants in science fiction fandom from 1962. As of 2012 Resnick had been the guest of honor at some 42 science fiction conventions and toastmaster at a dozen others. Resnick's wife created costumes in which she and Resnick appeared at five Worldcon masquerades in the 1970s, winning four out of five contests.