Music Monday: "In Thee"

Allen Lanier, founding member of Blue Öyster Cult, passed away last week at the age of 67. Besides being a guitarist and an excellent keyboardist, he also wrote several songs for the band.   Of these, "In Thee" is probably my favorite.

Jack Vance 1916-2013

Jack Vance, one of the greatest fantasy/S-F authors of the 20th century, has passed away.

http://jackvance.com/

Besides his tremendous body of work as an author, Vance is also noteworthy for his influence on RPG's.  His legacy regarding D&D is well documented, but his Demon Princes series was also a notable influence on Traveller, as well.

R.I.P. Ray Bradbury

Anyone who reads this blog has probably already heard the news, but legendary author Ray Bradbury has passed away.  Bradbury, probably more than any other author, was responsible for bringing the scorned genre of science fiction into the literary mainstream during the 20th century.  I won't claim to have read all of his works (that would be my wife), but I have read and enjoyed The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451, and Something Wicked This Way Comes, as well as some of his short fiction.

Ray Bradbury 1920-2012

And so almost all of the legendary sci-fi and fantasy writers of the mid-20th century are gone (Jack Vance and Frederik Pohl are still with us, but that's about it).

Thank you, Mr. Bradbury, for everything.

Oh, and on a less serious note, here's Rachel Bloom's bawdy and irreverent tribute to the man (mildly NSFW):

Professor M.A.R. Barker 1929-2012

As has been posted on several other gaming blogs, the Tékumel Foundation has announced that Professor M.A.R. Barker, creator of the world of Tékumel and the Empire Of The Petal Throne RPG, passed away on Friday.

 
R.I.P., Professor.

Four years later...

...we still roll the dice, when we can.

Ernest Gary Gygax: July 27, 1938 – March 4, 2008

Just watch out for those random encounters while on the astral and etheral planes, okay?

No more adventuring with Sarah Jane...

Elisabeth Sladen, a.k.a. Sarah Jane Smith, has passed away.

Dammit.

We've lost another one

Grognardia is reporting that classic D&D artist Jim Roslof has passed away.  Although his name wasn't as big as Gygax or Arneson, it's still a sad day from long-time D&D players.

"I just do the best I can."

Nicholas Courtney, best known for playing Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart (more simply just referred to as 'the Brigadier') on Doctor Who, has passed away.



Dammit.

The wrong kind of shock

Just found out that Dwayne McDuffie, a long-time comic book veteran, passed away Monday night due to complications from a medical procedure.

McDuffie was a co-founder of Milestone Media, and helped to create the character of Static, which eventually led to the Static Shock cartoon.  He also did a lot of excellent work on the Justice League animated series, and was just recently doing press work for the new All-Star Superman cartoon.



Damn.