Earlier this morning, I received word that my friend and long-time editor, David Hartwell, had suffered a massive cerebral bleed and subsequently died. David published my very first SF novel at a time when no one else wanted to take a chance on a novel and an author who was a bit different. That was some thirty-five years ago. Since then he has been the editor on all but two of my books, and scarcely a single week has passed that we haven’t talked, usually about books and publishing, but also about many aspects of life, and some similarities in our lives, not all of them pleasant, but better for being shared between friends.
He was usually low-key but intense, believed generally in the best in people, and tried to make every book the best book the author could write (not the best book the editor could write). He once rejected a manuscript that went on to become a mega-best-seller at another publishing house because he could see no way to make it what he considered to be a good book. David didn’t have a formula as an editor. He once told me that he worked differently with every author, and from what I’ve been able to tell, that was absolutely so.
Although he grumbled slightly when, after ten years writing science fiction for Tor, I switched gears and wrote a fantasy, he was pleased with The Magic of Recluce and pushed hard with Tor and probably a lot of others I never knew about to successfully launch it, and all the fantasies that followed. But his first love in the field was science fiction, and he was always delighted when I informed him that I was working on a science fiction novel. And he often asked when I’d be writing another one.
I’ll miss that, but most of all I’ll miss David, and his cheerful insistence on looking at the brighter side of matters under the worst of circumstances. And the entire field will miss his attitude, his knowledge and expertise, and even his splendid display of sartorial individuality and unmatchable ties.