Sam Moskowitz
| Sam Moskowitz | |
|---|---|
Sam Moskowitz, date unknown
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| Born |
June 30, 1920 Newark, NJ |
| Died | April 15, 1997 (aged 76) University Hospital Newark, NJ |
| Pen name | Sam Martin |
| Genre | Science Fiction |
Sam Moskowitz (June 30, 1920 – April 15, 1997) was an early fan and organizer of interest in science fiction and, later, a writer, critic, and historian of the field.
As a child, Moskowitz greatly enjoyed reading science fiction pulp magazines. As a teenager, he organized a branch of the Science Fiction League. Meanwhile, Donald A. Wollheim helped organize the Futurians, a rival club with Marxist sympathies. While still in his teens, Moskowitz became chairman of the first World Science Fiction Convention held in New York City in 1939. He barred several Futurians from the convention because they threatened to disrupt it. This event is referred to by historians of fandom as the "Great Exclusion Act".
Moskowitz later worked professionally in the science fiction field. He edited Science-Fiction Plus, a short-lived genre magazine owned by Hugo Gernsback, in 1953. He compiled about two dozen anthologies, and a few single-author collections, most published in the 1960s and early 1970s. Moskowitz also wrote a handful of short stories (three published in 1941, one in 1953, three in 1956). His most enduring work is likely to be his writing on the history of science fiction, in particular two collections of short author biographies, Explorers of the Infinite and Seekers of Tomorrow, as well as the highly regarded Under the Moons of Mars: A History and Anthology of “The Scientific Romance” in the Munsey Magazines, 1912-1920. His exhaustive cataloging of early sf magazine stories by important genre authors remains the best resource for nonspecialists.
Theodore Sturgeon, although noting the book's many imperfections, praised Explorers of the Infinite, saying "no one has surveyed the roots of SF as well as Mr. M.; probably no one ever will; prossibly [sic], no one else can."
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