Today, September 19, marks the birthday to two writers, Damon Knight (1922-2002) and Tanith Lee (1947-2015).

Damon Knight’s star has faded now. He hardly wrote anything the last few years of his life, so it was already dimming before he died.

But he accomplished a great deal.

Knight was primarily a short fiction writer. You’re probably, if you’re of a certain age, familiar with one of his stories because it was turned into an episode of the original Twilight Zone. That would be “How to Serve Man”. If you aren’t familiar with this story, i won’t spoil it for you. It’s one of the classic Twilight Zone twist stories.

A major retrospective of Knight’s work is long overdue. I may have to dig out a reading cophy of The Best of Damon Knight and revist a few of the stories. It’s been over thirty years since I read any of them.

But Knight’s lasting legacy wasn’t in his writing, and it wasn’t in his editing, either, athough he was an accomplished editor. I’ve not read much from them, but Knight was the editor of the Orbit series of original anthologies. This series ran for twenty-one volumes starting in 1966, and for some reason the later volumes are the ones that are harder to find. I think this was the first roiginal anthology series that kicked off the original anthology boom of the seventies.

Knight established two things that had a major impact on the field of science fiction and later fantasy. The first was the Clarion writer’s conference. While I’m not a fan of everyone who has gone through that conference, it has has a lastiing impact on writing.

The second thing Knight did was found the Science Fiction Writers of America. The name has changed a little to bring fantasy into the organization. It’s not doing too well at the moment. If you don’t know, two presidents have resigned in the last couple of months, and there are rumors of other trouble. (I’m not going to get into that here. Google it if you really want to  know.)

Tanith Lee should be no stranger to regular readers of this blog.

Lee began writing in the late sixties but really hit her stride in the seventies. Most of her early work n the States (maybe all of it) was published by DAW. She was quite prolific in those days. Her output slowed in later years.

That may have been more because publishing changed. Books became thicker, and the number of titles an author published in a year became less and less.

I miss the days when paperbacks were around fifty to sixty thousand words. And inexpensive. DAW paperbacks were full of pulpy goodness.

But I digress.

Lee’s work often included sword and sorcery.

Lee continued to write short fiction unntil her death. I’ve mostly read her short fiction, and whiile it’s been a while since I’ve read any, I’ve always enjoyed it. I need to read some more soon. Adulting is so inconvenient at times.

So, these are the two birthdays that fell today. Do any of you have any preferences for individual stories from either author?