Post by Jerry Mapes on Feb 14, 2005 15:28:59 GMT -5
Wow! I was stunned when i read this. I was just talking the other day about i how i miss the old convention days. It never failed, Jack would almost always be at the conventions I would attend. He obviously as a Guest Author and me as a lowly player or Con staff. Jack was one of the nicest guys a person could ever meet. The first con we met was in Columbia Mo. Jack was tired from the trip and was running late so he hadn't slept. But he did the round table discussion anyway. Afterward all he was interested in was sitting back and relaxing. Unfortunately some of his "fans" had other ideas and they would not leave him alone; even so much as to follow him into the courtesy suite and bugging him there. Finally I walked over and and said, Mr. Chalker you have a phone call, I will show you where you can take it. He got up and followed out of the room, leaving his tormentors behind. Once we were out of site near side entrance I showed him my Staff badge and apologized for other staff letting non-authorized people in the suite. I then asked him if he had had lunch and if not I knew a quite place down town that had good food. He simply said, Sounds good, and off we went. I think we finally got back to the con about 5pm after an afternoon of just relaxing and BSing about anything and everything.
A few months later we ran into each other again and decided to take saturday afternoon off, go have lunch and catch up on the BS. So it went for at least another 12 or 15 conventions over the next few years. After i became disabled i didn't go to cons near as much so Jack and I would keep up via letters and later email. But only in these past few years have we not kept in contact as much. Still I could count on hearing from him every couple of months - at least until about a year ago. He wasn't getting to the Midwest near as much, I wasn't going east anytime soon so this past year or so, we pretty much fell out of contact.
I will really miss Jack, even though we didn't talk much but for a couple times in the past 1 and a half years. He was a great guy, always ready to wit, and never caught up in ego fame trips. He was more concerned about just enjoying life and the small things that came his way.
Goodbye Jack.
Feb. 14, 2005 12:00 AM
BALTIMORE - Jack L. Chalker, who wrote more than 60 science-fiction and fantasy novels, died of kidney failure Friday at Bon Secours Hospital in Baltimore. He was 60.
Chalker's career began in his early teens with a literary magazine, Mirage, that he produced on an electric mimeograph machine and assembled with friends.
"He would write famous authors and see if they wanted to write free non-fiction pieces for his magazine, and a surprising number did," said his wife, Eva C. Whitley. advertisement
The magazine earned Chalker, then 14, a nomination for the Hugo Award, the genre's highest honor, presented by the World Science Fiction Society.
Chalker's 1977 novel Midnight at the Well of Souls, about a walking, talking plant with brains in its feet, sold hundreds of thousands of copies, his wife said.
[Edit: blatant spelling errors and fixing photo link]
A few months later we ran into each other again and decided to take saturday afternoon off, go have lunch and catch up on the BS. So it went for at least another 12 or 15 conventions over the next few years. After i became disabled i didn't go to cons near as much so Jack and I would keep up via letters and later email. But only in these past few years have we not kept in contact as much. Still I could count on hearing from him every couple of months - at least until about a year ago. He wasn't getting to the Midwest near as much, I wasn't going east anytime soon so this past year or so, we pretty much fell out of contact.
I will really miss Jack, even though we didn't talk much but for a couple times in the past 1 and a half years. He was a great guy, always ready to wit, and never caught up in ego fame trips. He was more concerned about just enjoying life and the small things that came his way.
Goodbye Jack.
Feb. 14, 2005 12:00 AM
BALTIMORE - Jack L. Chalker, who wrote more than 60 science-fiction and fantasy novels, died of kidney failure Friday at Bon Secours Hospital in Baltimore. He was 60.
Chalker's career began in his early teens with a literary magazine, Mirage, that he produced on an electric mimeograph machine and assembled with friends.
"He would write famous authors and see if they wanted to write free non-fiction pieces for his magazine, and a surprising number did," said his wife, Eva C. Whitley. advertisement
The magazine earned Chalker, then 14, a nomination for the Hugo Award, the genre's highest honor, presented by the World Science Fiction Society.
Chalker's 1977 novel Midnight at the Well of Souls, about a walking, talking plant with brains in its feet, sold hundreds of thousands of copies, his wife said.
[Edit: blatant spelling errors and fixing photo link]
