Walter Miller Jr.

author

Walter Miller Jr.

Walter M. Miller, Jr. (1922-1997) was the author of the Hugo winning novel, A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ (1960) generally regarded as one of the ten finest works to ever emerge from the genre. Like Jos...ver maisWalter M. Miller, Jr. (1922-1997) was the author of the Hugo winning novel, A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ (1960) generally regarded as one of the ten finest works to ever emerge from the genre. Like Joseph Heller, Miller was a WWII combat flier who was severely damaged by his horrific experiences; he became a journalist and published prolifically over the decade of the 1950’s, then went silent for his last forty years. (An uncompleted expensively contracted semi-sequel to A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ was finished off by Terry Bisson after Miller’s death and published unsuccessfully by Bantam Books.) Miller published approximately 40 magazine stories and the one novel in the 1950’s, some of the stories are regarded as monuments to the genre. His novella, THE DARFSTELLAR, published in ASTOUNDING’s January 1955 issue, won the Hugo as did CANTICLE half a decade later for best novel. Miller’s other contribution to GALAXY, CONDITIONALLY HUMAN, appeared nine months earlier than COMMAND PERFORMANCE and is regarded equally highly. Miller’s personal involvement with the science fiction community was embittering and disastrous; a well publicized affair with Judith Merril, then Frederik Pohl’s wife, wrecked her marriage and damaged his, and he abandoned any involvement with that community in the mid-fifties, living as a near recluse. Miller later committed suicide by gunshot.ver menos