Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Happy Birthday, Anthony Boucher!

Surely I've written before about what a big influence Anthony Boucher was on my life and career, though I never met the man. So I won't repeat any of that. I'll just say that he's a major figure in the world of mystery and SF, one of the greats as a reviewer (my personal favorite), and the patron saint of Bouchercon.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

And an expert in opera, and as such one of the pioneering broadcasters on the Pacifica Radio anchor station KPFA in the 1950s and '60s. One writer and aficionado of classical music was once sqigged out a bit by AB's light-hearted discussion of castrati on his show, but I suspect, as I suggested to him, that a man who took as his pseudonyms the names of a famous serial murderer had perhaps at times an Unusual sense of humor...also, as a translator (albeit this still falls within the CF and fantastic-fiction fields), he was the first AFAIK to translate Jorge Luis Borges's fiction into English for publication..."The Garden of the Forking Paths" (or was it "Death and the Compass"...probably the latter) for EQMM in the '40s...pity he never chose to run Borges's fantasies in F&SF when he and McComas finally were able to persuade Lawrence Spivak and Joseph Ferman to release it. (Spivak, almost ready to sell AMERICAN MERCURY and devote all his energies to MEET THE PRESS, had one foot out the door already, probably adding to the caution along with the uncertain post-war economy).