Author Birthdays: Fry, Bester, Moorcock
by marshd
December 18th marks the birthday of authors Christopher Fry, Alfred Bester, and Michael Moorcock.
Christopher Fry was an English playwright, best known for the romantic comedy "The Lady's Not for Burning", which resembles Shakespeare's comedies, but contains a sense of post-WWII sentiments. It is considered the "spring" play out of his seasonal series, which also includes autumn "Venus Observed", winter "The Dark is Light Enough", and summer "A Yard of Sun".
Fry also wrote the plays "The Boy with a Cart" (a celebration of Saint Cuthman of Steyning) and "A Phoenix Too Frequent" (a comedy based on Petronius's tale of the Ephesian widow).
Alfred Bester was an American science fiction writer and winner of the FIRST Hugo Award for his book The Demolished Man, set in a futuristic world filled with telepathy; it is often called a precursor to the cyberpunk subgenre.
Bester's other works include the novels Psycho Shop, written in conjunction with fellow sci-fi writer Roger Zelazny, and The Stars My Destination, an adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. He also wrote quite a few short stories, collected in titles like Virtual Unrealities.
Michael Moorcock is an English science fiction and fantasy and literary writer, and winner of about 15 awards. Among those, I will mention the Nebula Award for Behold the Man and the World Fantasy Award for Gloriana.
Many of Moorcock's series and standalone novels are in a similar world/universe grouping known as The Eternal Champion. Among these are works like The Jewel in the Skull of the Hawkmoon series and Elric: The Stealer of Souls, which is a collection of (some of the) stories with the character Elric.
Blog Post