Richard Matheson, RIP

[villager]

Richard Matheson, 1926-2013

TOR.COM

Photo by Beth Gwinn

Tor.com is saddened and staggered to learn of the passing of Richard Matheson, the esteemed author of I am Legend, The Shrinking Man, What Dreams May Come, Hell House, the script for the Steven Spielberg film Duel, and many Twilight Zone scripts, among many more works.

The author's passing was first announced via a protected Facebook post [via John Shirley] by his daugther Ali Marie Matheson:

My beloved father passed away yesterday at home surrounded by the people and things he loved…he was funny, brilliant, loving, generous, kind, creative, and the most wonderful father ever…I miss you and love you forever Pop and I know you are now happy and healthy in a beautiful place full of love and joy you always knew was there…

<snip>

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/06/richard-matheson-passed-away

[Ron Obvious]

1. Sad

I just read Somewhere in Time.

RIP

[graham4anything]

2. Somewhere in time. Bid Time Return. Is it you? Is it?-Elise to Richard.

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="

?feature=player_detailpage" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

John Barry
theme from Somewhere in Time

[villager]

4. Jeez, and we lost John Barry not too long ago, too...

Thanks for the link!

[oregonjen]

3. He wrote "Bid Time Return" which was turned into the movie "Somewhere In Time"

Love that story. RIP Mr. Matheson

Just saw the musical "Somewhere in Time" last weekend. I think the producers are trying to get it to Broadway.

[Rowdyboy]

5. Hell House was an excellent horror piece, one of my favorites....

Very sad at his passing.

[henrywolfsburg]

6. Duel With Dennis Weaver

I didn't realize he had written the movie Duel until just now. So much good writing. [link:http://www.zombielogic.org/2013/06/dennis-weaver-as-symbol-of-downtrodden.html|

[villager]

7. a great early Spielberg flick!

[displacedtexan]

8. How sad!

He has always been one of my favorite writers. Back in the Dark Ages, my teachers would look at me quizically whenever I alluded to his works. They had no idea who he was, but they all loved The Twilight Zone.

How can you love a show with fascinating original stories and not be curious about the writers?

This is truly sad news.

[villager]

9. displacedtexan, should we also be sad that you didn't have more curious teachers!?

Still, glad to hear you were keeping yourself interested and engaged in those Dark Ages!

[Art_from_Ark]

19. Maybe your teachers just assumed that Rod Serling

was doing all the writing.

[zappaman]

10. Great writer!

RIP

[First Speaker]

11. If you can find any of his story collections, do so...

...it's one of the blessings of used bookstores, finding great SF/fantasy single-author collections from the 50s and 60s...few were better than Matheson. Especially, if you can find it, "Fear in the Night"--an incredible horror story, only six pages long but it'll stick with you...

[randome]

15. If you can find any used bookstores. They're becoming an endangered species.

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[font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font]
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[Paladin]

12. A great, great writer. Sorry to hear of his passing. (nt)

[mwrguy]

13. Drink My Red Blood

Is a great short story.

[shenmue]

14. Rest in peace

[socialist_n_TN]

16. Wow, that's sad to hear. I read a LOT.......

enough where I'll sometime forget that I've read a book before until I'm halfway through reading it again. I read "I Am Legend" when I was in my early teens and I NEVER forgot it. For me, that's recommendation enough.

And they STILL haven't gotten the movie right.

[villager]

17. And they've tried three times!

Still have kind of a soft spot for "The Omega Man," since I can still remember going to that matinee as a teen....

[HiPointDem]

18. oh man. i remember matheson coming to my attention a loooong time ago when i read his

short story 'born of man and woman'. it was unlike any story i'd read before (being written from the pov of a deformed child chained in the basement.) it was the use of language that was so novel to me:

BORN OF MAN AND WOMAN (1954)
Richard Matheson

X— This day when it had light mother called me retch. You retch she said. I saw in her eyes the anger. I wonder what it is a retch.

This day it had water falling from upstairs. It fell all around. I saw that. The ground of the back I watched from the little window. The ground it sucked up the water like thirsty lips. It drank too much and it got sick and runny brown. i didn't like it.

Mother is a pretty I know. In my bed with cold walls around I have a paper things that was behind the furnace. It says on it SCREENSTARS. I see in the pictures faces like of mother and father. Father says they are pretty. Once he said it. And also mother he said. Mother so pretty and me decent enough. Look at you he said and he didn't have the nice face. I touched his arm and said it is alright father. He shook and pulled away where I couldn't reach.

Today mother let me off the chain a little so I could look out the little window. That's how I saw the water falling from upstairs.

XX- This day it had goldness in the upstairs. As I know when I looked at it my eyes hurt. After I look at it the cellar is red. I think this was church...

...X- I am not so glad. All day it is cold in here. The chain comes slow out of the wall. And I have a bad anger with mother and father. I will show them. I will do what I did that once.
I will screech and laugh loud. I will run on the walls. Last I will hang head and down by all my legs and laugh and drip green all over until they are sorry they didn't be nice to me. If they try to beat me again Ill hurt them. I will.

X-

http://www.summit.k12.nj.us/~rwallock/FOV2-00113798/FOV2-00113529/FOV2-0011849A/BornManWoman_Matheson.pdf

rip