Sean CW Korsgaard is reporting that Howard Andrew Jones has passed away. Howard announced he had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer late last summer. Sean also posted the image below which I am shamelessly stealing because it captiures perfectly how I feel.

I met Howard a couple of times over the years. The first time was at the World Fantasy Convention in 2006 in Austin. This was jsut before the first of the Harold Lamb anthologies he edited for Bison Books was published. He had an advanced copy that he held onto. He  didn’t let it get away from. I know bacuase I tried to talk him out of it.

It was because of this meeting that I got interested in Harold Lamb and eventually collected the entire set Howard edited.

So, thank you, Howard, for that.

More recently, we met again at Robert E. Howard Days last year. He told me life was great. He was writing and living on his farm and things couldn’t be better. I was really happy for him and told him so.

How quickly things can change.

Howard cared deeply about sword and sorcery and was a constant promoter of it. He was the inaugural editor for Tales of the Magician’s Skull. When I asked him how I could get on his list of contributors (the magazine didn’t take open submissions), he told me ownership had changed, and he was no longer the editor. I told him that sucked.

Howard was very outgoing, friendly, easy to talk to, genuinely interested in the people he spoke with.

His most recent fantasy series is the Nanuvar series. The third book came out last fall from Baen. I’ve not had a chance to read more than one or two of the Hanuvar short stories. They were great.

Howard was a talented writer who was just hitting his stride. The Hanuvar series was projected to be five books. I don’t know if Howard completed the fourth or had even started it.

The world lost a fantastic writer.

But more than that, we’ve lost an excellent human being.

My thoughts and prayers are with Howard’s famiily and friends tonight, and I’ll raise a glass shortly to his memory. I especially want to extend my condolences to John C. Hocking, who attended Robert E. Howard Days with Howard Andrew Jones this past year. Their friendship goes back years. John, I’m extremely sorry for your loss.