Horace Gold
| H. L. Gold | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | Horace Leonard Gold April 26, 1914 Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
| Died | February 21, 1996 (aged 81) Laguna Hills, California |
| Pen name | Clyde Crane Campbell, Dudley Dell, Leigh Keith, Richard Storey |
| Occupation | Editor, novelist, short story author |
| Genre | Science fiction, Fantasy |
| Notable works | "Trouble with Water", "The Old Die Rich" |
| Spouse | Evelyn Stein (?-1957; divorced) Muriel "Nicky" (Nicholson) Conley |
Horace Leonard "H. L." Gold (April 26, 1914 – February 21, 1996) was an American science fiction writer and editor. Born in Canada, Gold moved to the United States at the age of two. He was most noted for bringing an innovative and fresh approach to science fiction while he was the editor of Galaxy Science Fiction, and also wrote briefly for DC Comics.
H. L. Gold was Jewish, and there are claims that he at first had to write under pseudonyms because publishers feared the readers' potential antisemitism. He was drafted in to the US Army during the Second World War, serving in the Pacific theater of Operations. His marriage to Evelyn Stein ended in divorce in 1957, and his second marriage was to Muriel "Nicky" (Nicholson) Conley. He died in 1996.
His brother Floyd C. Gold, writing under the pen name Floyd C. Gale, was the primary book reviewer for Galaxy from 1955-1963. His son E. J. Gold is an artist, writer, musician and one of the oldest online gamers.
After becoming editor of Galaxy Gold wrote that as a "dazzled boy" he "discovered science fiction in 1927, at the age of 13":
Amazing Stories had been out for a year then, but it was Wells' War of the Worlds, sitting innocently on a Providence library shelf, that I found first. The personal impact was that of an explosive harpoon, and when I belatedly discovered those beautifully garish Paul covers, decorated with heroically paralyzed men in jodhpurs and simperingly paralyzed women in blowy veils, among giant insects and plants with leering heads, I was hooked.
During the 1930s, Gold unsuccessfully wrote stories for pulp magazines. The day he was fired from his regular job because his boss believed that a writer should not work as a busboy, Gold learned that he had made his first sale. Beginning with "Inflexure" (as Clyde Crane Campbell) in Astounding Science Fiction (October 1934), Gold later worked for Standard Magazines, Fawcett Comics and Timely Comics. He used the Campbell pen-name for his first half-dozen or so stories in 1934/35. When he resumed his writing career in 1938 he took the billing Horace L. Gold, but soon shortened it to the now more familiar H. L. Gold.
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