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Damon Francis Knight (September 19, 1922 – April 15, 2002) was an American science fiction author, editor, and critic. He is the author of "To Serve Man", a 1950 short story film adaptation for The Twilight Zone.Stanyard, Dimensions Behind the Twilight Zone, p. 51. He was married to fellow writer Kate Wilhelm.
Knight's first professional sale was a cartoon drawing to a science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories.Knight, "Knight Piece," Brian W. Aldiss & Harry Harrison, Hell's Cartographers, Orbit Books, 1976, p. 105. His first story, "The Itching Hour", appeared in the Summer 1940 number of Futuria Fantasia, edited and published by Ray Bradbury. "Resilience" followed in the February 1941 number of Stirring Science Stories, edited by Donald A. Wollheim. An editorial error made the latter story's ending incomprehensible;Pohl, SFWA Grand Masters Volume Three, p. 202. it was reprinted in a 1978 magazine in four pages with a two-page introduction by Knight.
At the time of his first story sale he was living in New York and was a member of the Futurians. One of his short stories describes paranormal disruption of a science fiction fan group and contains cameo appearances of various Futurians and others under thinly-disguised names; for instance, non-Futurian SF writer H. Beam Piper is identified as "H. Dreyne Fifer".
Knight's forte was the short story; he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.
To the general public he is best known as the author of "To Serve Man", a 1950 short story film adaptation for The Twilight Zone. It won a 50-year Retro-Hugo in 2001 as the best short story of 1950. Knight was also a science fiction critic, a career which began when he wrote in 1945 that A. E. van Vogt "is not a giant as often maintained. He's only a pygmy who has learned to operate an overgrown typewriter." He ceased reviewing when Fantasy & Science Fiction refused to publish his review of Judith Merril's novel The Tomorrow People.
Algis Budrys wrote that Knight and "William Atheling Jr." (James Blish) had "transformed the reviewer's trade in the field", in Knight's case "without the guidance of his own prior example". The term "idiot plot", a story that only functions because almost everyone in it is an idiot, became well known through Knight's frequent use of it in his reviews, though he believed the term was probably invented by Blish.Gary K. Wolfe, "Coming to Terms", in Gunn & Candelaria, Speculations on Speculation, p. 18. Knight's only non-Retro-Hugo Award was for "Best Reviewer" in 1956.
Knight was the founder of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), cofounder of the National Fantasy Fan Federation, cofounder of the Milford Writer's Workshop, and cofounder of the Clarion Writers Workshop. The SFWA officers and past presidents named Knight its 13th Grand Master in 1994 (presented 1995). After his death, the associated award was renamed the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award in his honor. The Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted him in 2003.
Until his death, Knight lived in Eugene, Oregon, with his second wife, author Kate Wilhelm. His papers are held in the University of Oregon Special Collections and University Archive.
(2025). 9781539833697, ReAnimus Press. ISBN 9781539833697 These reviews were later collected in In Search of Wonder.
Selected works
Novels
Short stories and other writings
Literary criticism and analysis
Short story collections
See also
Notes
Sources
(1976). 9780860079071, Futura. ISBN 9780860079071
External links
Categories: 1922 Births, 2002 Deaths, American Science Fiction Writers, Futurians, Hugo Award–winning Writers, Writers From Eugene, Oregon, Sfwa Grand Masters, American Science Fiction Critics, American Science Fiction Editors, Science Fiction Hall Of Fame Inductees, 20th-century American Novelists, Novelists From Oregon, American Male Novelists, American Male Short Story Writers, People From Hood River, Oregon, 20th-century American Short Story Writers, 20th-century American Male Writers, American Male Non-fiction Writers
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