Poul Anderson died at home near midnight, Tuesday July 31, 2001. He had come home that day to receive hospice care after kidney failure brought on by prostate cancer. His last day was spent with family and friends. He enjoyed his final meals, and especially a Jubilaeum akvavit and Carlsberg beer. He was pleased and warmed by the many e-mails he received from friends and strangers around the world who had been touched by his writing. Special thanks go to Diana Paxson, Geoff Kidd, and Gerry Nordley, who helped greatly in his homecoming. A memorial gathering is planned for 2pm, Saturday, August 4 at the First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th Street, Oakland. Following that, a small wake will be held at Greyhaven from approximately 5pm. Please bring food or drink to share if attending the wake. Karen Anderson writes: Integer Vitae In Poul's last hours, messages poured in from strangers who told how they had learned honor and courage from his writing, courtesy and kindness from his personal example. Such tributes cannot be awarded, but only earned. He led his life without expecting to gain rewards or escape punishment in some other existence. He knew that good and evil arise from human nature, and believed it is our duty to choose the good. He was, in the words of the poet Horace, "integer vitae sclerisque purus" -- a man of blameless life and free of crime. ------ Sci-Fi master Poul Anderson dies in Orinda By RON HARRIS SAN FRANCISCO (AP)--Award-winning science fiction master Poul Anderson, author of futuristic tales of human courage, died of complications related to prostate cancer. He was 74. Anderson died Tuesday at his home in Orinda, about 15 miles east of San Francisco, after a month in the hospital. Anderson was a former president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and a winner of three Nebula Awards and seven Hugo Awards. In 1997 the SFWA named him a Grandmaster and last year he was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. Last month, his novel "Genesis" won the John W. Campbell Award for the best science fiction novel of 2000. Other noted works include "Tau Zero," "Midsummer Tempest," "The Boat of a Million Years" and "The Enemy Stars." Fellow sci-fi authors Sir Arthur Clarke and Harlan Ellison both sent condolences to the Anderson family. "My thoughts are with you, as I recall the many hours of reading pleasure you have given me," Clarke said. Greg Bear, Anderson's son-in-law and a noted sci-fi author, recalled the last time they talked. "My last conversation with him was slow but sparkling with the curiosity and deep-seated gentlemanliness that Poul always had, and which was, I think, built into his whole body and being," Bear said. Anderson grew up in Minnesota and Texas. He published his first story in 1947 while attending the University of Minnesota. After his marriage in 1953, he and wife Karen Kruse moved to the San Francisco Bay area, where he lived for the rest of his life. On Thursday, Anderson's wife remembered her husband as a writer who took the simplest observations and expanded on them in his books about imaginary lands and beings. Anderson's stories exemplified the bravery the writer saw around him and throughout history, his wife said. "They showed the importance of honor and courage, the wonder of the universe and knowing about it through science," she said. "Many scientists have told him they got their start by reading not just science fiction, but his science fiction." "The Boat of A Million Years" was an epic novel spanning past and future evolutions of humanity wherein some people naturally evolve to become immortal, only to find themselves ostracized by society. In "Three Hearts and Three Lions" Anderson wrote of a modern-day engineer caught in a fantastical world of dragons and witches. "One time we were at the Academy of Science in San Francisco, waiting for a planetarium program, and watching the big pendulum swing," Karen Anderson told The Associated Press Thursday. "Just casually one of us said to the other 'I wonder how much you could learn about where you are on a strange planet if all you had was a pendulum?' " That quick exchange lead to a short story, as did many other casual observations of the couple. Though he wrote of technologically advanced civilizations, Anderson himself preferred the basics when constructing his stories. "He used a typewriter up until last fall, always being too busy on the next story to learn how to use computers," his wife said. Only last year did Anderson learn computing basics on an Apple Macintosh. He is survived by his wife, a daughter, a brother and two grandchildren. A memorial gathering will be held Saturday at the First Unitarian Church in Oakland.
