Comments on: H. Beam Piper

By: Richard Moore

Richard Moore — Wed, 19 May 2010 17:33:57 +0000

I wasn’t aware that Rogers Terrill had been Piper’s agent. He must have liked having former pulp editors as agents as his agent for several years running up to his suicide was Kenneth White. It was White’s death that threw Piper’s financial situation (never good) to the desperation point. White’s unexpected (Piper did not know he was ill) death meant expected payments for stories sold did not come through, nor revisions requested by John Campbell. In the confusion left by White, Ace Books published Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen before the last novella was published by Analog. This greatly irritated Campbell, who detailed in Brass Tacks how the mix-up had happened.

Carr’s biography corrects the record on Piper’s ex-wife, who some say spent all of his money on a Paris honeymoon. As I recall the Carr biography (which I don’t have in front of me), they were married in the U.S. and her very responsible job with an international organization kept her in New York City. Piper commuted back and forth to NYC from Altoona. Her job took her to Paris and Piper followed. He hated everything about Paris and within a few months, he walked out and returned to the U.S. The marriage was a personal and financial disaster for Piper, who was probably as ill-suited for marriage as could be imagined. Yet, he missed her for the rest of his life.

By: Anton Sherwood

Anton Sherwood — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 04:36:09 +0000

Thanks for telling a fuller version of the story than had reached me before.

By: Michael Rawdon

Michael Rawdon — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 23:18:54 +0000

Piper is the writer who got me into reading science fiction - I discovered him as a teenager around 1985 or so. I first read Empire, a collection of his later-in-the-timeline future history stories, which is probably still my favorite book of his.

I’ve heard that he left copious notes of his future history behind, and I’d always hoped someone would bundle them up and publish them. I suspect the chances of that get smaller every year, as his books are not even kept in print anymore. Too bad.

By: Fuloydo

Fuloydo — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:46:51 +0000

One of the first, if not THE first, Science Fiction books I ever read was Little Fuzzy. I found it on the shelf of the small bookcase full of paperbacks my father had in the spare bedroom of our house when I was about ten. This was in 1973. I loved that book and, about ten years later, it was stolen from my car while I was eating lunch. I hope whoever took it appreciated what they got. My thoughts when I first heard about how he died were, sad to say, mostly selfish. How many more Terro-Human Future History stories did he have, that we never got to share. The man knew how to tell a story.

By: Greg Weeks

Greg Weeks — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 22:09:09 +0000

I’ve always wondered what H. Beam Piper would have written if things would have worked out just a little differently. I started reading Piper’s work when Jim Baen did the reprints at Ace in the 80’s. The earlier printings were impossible to find at the time. I think most of them still hold up. I think I’ve read everything he’s written now. Null ABC/Crisis In 2140 was the last I found.

Greg Weeks

By: Christopher

Christopher — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:16:37 +0000

H. Beam Piper was a really important author to me as a young man. One of the first science fiction books I ever read was Little Fuzzy.

By: Branko Collin

Branko Collin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:51:18 +0000

If he shot the pigeons that were sitting on his window sill, wouldn’t land in the street instead of the pan? How did that work?

By: Robert Nowall

Robert Nowall — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:16:06 +0000

After first encountering Piper\’s work (when Ace Books reprinted the bulk of them in the mid-to-late 1970s and early 1980s), I thought the world of them, some of the best stuff I\’d read in SF. And most of it still holds up for me. It was years before I learned even a hint of what had happened to him.

I wrote in a post elsewhere about how SF writers are unlikely candidates for a massive bodybuilder biography. I have read the John F. Carr biography of Piper. It was, well, peculiar—but since it would seem it\’s likely to be the only substantial biography of Piper that I will *ever* be able to read, I am grateful for its existence.

(Also, I found some details of the biography enlightening—and discouraging. I remember how great Piper\’s works were—and how little money he made from them.)