Algis Budrys

Algis Budrys
Algis Budrys at the 1985 Clarion Science Fiction Writing Workshop
Born	January 9, 1931 Königsberg, East Prussia
Died	June 9, 2008(2008-06-09) (aged 77) Evanston, Illinois, USA
Occupation	Novelist, Short-story writer, editor, Critic
Genre	Science fiction
Notable works	The Falling Torch, Rogue Moon, Who?

Algirdas Jonas "Algis" Budrys (January 9, 1931 – June 9, 2008) was a Lithuanian-American science fiction author, editor, and critic. He was also known under the pen names Frank Mason, Alger Rome, John A. Sentry, William Scarff, and Paul Janvier.

Budrys was born in Königsberg in the then East Prussia, to a family which considered itself Lithuanian rather than German. In 1936, when Budrys was five years old, his father Jonas Budrys was appointed as the Lithuanian consul general in New York. Jonas Budrys continued to hold that position, even though Lithuania was occupied by Nazi Germany and then annexed by the Soviet Union, becoming a Soviet Republic - since the United States continued to recognize the pre-World War II Lithuanian government and the exile Lithuanian Diplomatic Service was subsidized by State Department. During most of his adult life, Budrys held a captain's commission in the Free Lithuanian Army.

Budrys was educated at the University of Miami, and later at Columbia University in New York. His first published science fiction story was "The High Purpose", which appeared in Astounding Science Fiction in 1952. Beginning in 1952 Budrys worked as editor and manager for such science fiction publishers as Gnome Press and Galaxy Science Fiction. Some of his science fiction in the 1950s was published under the pen name "John A. Sentry", a reconfigured Anglification of his Lithuanian name. Among his other pseudonyms in the SF magazines of the 1950s and elsewhere, several revived as bylines for vignettes in his magazine Tomorrow Speculative Fiction, is "William Scarff". He also wrote several stories under the names "Ivan Janvier" or "Paul Janvier." He also used the pen name "Alger Rome" in his collaborations with Jerome Bixby.