Daniel Keyes (1927-2014)

[james_davis_nicoll]

Author Daniel Keyes, 86, died June 15, 2014.

Keyes is best known for his Hugo Award winning classic SF story “Flowers for Algernon” (F&SF, 1959), the Nebula Award winning and bestselling 1966 novel expansion, and the film version Charly (1968).

- See more at: http://www.locusmag.com/News/2014/06/daniel-keyes-1927-2014/#sthash.1aojIyJU.dpuf

Comments

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It's sad that a lot of people probably only know of his work because Flowers for Algernon is mentioned in an episode of Person of Interest.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't recall the PoI reference, but it's also referred to in _Angel_.

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/person-of-interest-bad-code-85956 goes into enough detail about the episode that it mentions the book.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks. The Angel episode was "Smile Time" http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smile_Time in which one character was diagnosed with "Acute Flowers For Algernon Syndrome"

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

The story and book (and movie) were a long time ago.

The impact of them, however, was huge, and continues to show up.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

It's a frequently assigned work in US public-school English classes (in various forms; I read the short story).

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

Now that you mention it, Flowers for Algernon was the work that taught me, in junior high school, that stuff people read for fun could also be assigned reading in school.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Between that and Inherit the Wind...and "The Monsters are Coming to Maple Street" from The Twilight Zone back in grade school...

[david wilford (from livejournal.com)]

I remember reading "Flowers for Algernon" when I was 12 or 13, after I noticed the paperback novel on my mother's bookshelf. It's a beautiful story.

P.S. please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard.

[w. dow rieder (from livejournal.com)]

Powerfully written, evocative, and incredibly depressing. I read it quite young as well, and it was the first example of a whole category of fiction that I will now not voluntarily read or reread--stuff that tends to exacerbate my clinical depression.

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

My father highly recommended "The Grifters" ( Anjelica Huston, John Cusack, Annette Bening ) and added, "But wait until a day when you're in a really good mood, because it's incredibly dark."

Somehow I've never been in *that* good a mood, even though I like that set of actors.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

*sigh*

And Westlake died a while back, too.

I am not particularly looking forward to a complete Terry Pratchett collection...

...geez.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

...Alas. Rest in peace.


This does, at least, mean I have finally looked up what else he's written.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

In the same spirit, I shall post a link to his ISFDB entry. And to his own bio page.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Good call. Thank you.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

... I have to admit, my reaction was "HOLY SHIT HE WAS STILL ALIVE?"

Early-grade-school curriculum was all Old Dead Guys. And nobody *ever* made a distinction between Old Dead Guy and Not Dead Guy. So I've mentally filed a great many early-grade-school authors as "obviously dead".

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I guess many of us were hoping that the news of his death wasn't true, because there wasn't any confirmation on a reliable site until now...

A great writer.

[abigail-n.livejournal.com]

I'm a little surprised this wasn't a bigger deal - other than Locus, I haven't seen any other news sites reporting this. I guess in my head Flowers for Algernon was a major or at least massively influential work, but looking back it doesn't get mentioned very often, and from the obituary in Locus I gather that nothing else he wrote had that kind of resonance.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I think there's an anecdote in an anthology (One of the Asimov Hugo anthos, maybe?) where someone asks Keyes how he wrote something as powerful as Flowers and Keyes replied "If you find out, tell me."

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

First "Hugo Winners" anthology. Asimov himself is the "someone".

[(Anonymous)]

Article on Washington Post about Keyes http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/daniel-keyes-author-of-the-classic-book-flowers-for-algernon-dies-at-86/2014/06/18/646e30d6-f6f4-11e3-a606-946fd632f9f1_story.html

[foms.livejournal.com]

I received my copy of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine, yesterday. The column by Robert Silverberg mentioned that Daniel Keyes was still alive. Only ten hours ago... [sigh]

[(Anonymous)]

Egoboo for Algernon by Terry Carr http://www.ansible.co.uk/misc/egoboo.html

[dewline.livejournal.com]

It was required reading in the high school I attended.