A Wrinkle in Time Author Dead at 88

'2001' author shaped space-age thought

(NEWSER) - Arthur C. Clarke, the sci-fi author who helped shape 20th-century scientific imagination, is dead at 90, the New York Times reports. The co-creator of 2001: A Space Odyssey faced post-polio syndrome in recent decades and died at his home in Sri Lanka due to breathing trouble. “No one can predict the future,” Clarke maintained, but he couldn’t resist trying—and often succeeded. More»

Boston Globe scribe succumbs after long cancer battle

(NEWSER) - Novelist and ex-Boston Globe reporter Gregory Mcdonald is dead at 71, Variety reports, succumbing after a long battle with cancer. Mcdonald is best known for his best-selling Fletch mystery novels, which comprise 15 of his 26 books. Four of his books have been turned into movies, including Fletch, Fletch Lives, The Brave and Running Scared. A collection of his Globe writings is currently being reprinted. More»

(NEWSER) - Michael Crichton's seemingly endless output may not be literature (a statement the late Crichton himself might take issue with), but don't discount the "fine craftsmanship" they entailed, writes Charles McGrath in the New York Times. From Andromeda Strain to Jurassic Park, his "intricately engineered entertainment systems" relied on a simple formula—usually a sinister aspect of science run amok—and well researched detail. "Very few readers who started a Crichton novel ever put it down." More»

Penned police novels infused with Navajo culture

(NEWSER) - Bestselling author Tony Hillerman died yesterday at 83 of pulmonary failure, the AP reports. He was known for his mystery novels, which featured two Navajo policemen with distinct views on their people, constantly balancing the Navajo world with the Anglo one. A onetime journalist, he found success with Skinwalkers in 1987 and made bestseller lists with A Thief of Time. More»

Critic, essayist, novelist co-founded New York Review of Books

(NEWSER) - Elizabeth Hardwick, co-founder of the New York Review of Books, died Sunday at 91, the Times reports. The Kentucky-born Hardwick moved north in 1939—“my aim was to be a New York Jewish intellectual,” she said later—and became a critical giant. "I have always written essays as if they were examples of imaginative writing, as I believe them to be," she wrote. More»