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Barry Longyear is dead. I wasn't going to note his passing because he and I were never close. We bumped into each other on panels at Worldcons a couple of times, but that was it. However, the current issue of Locus has, in addition to its obituary, only one appreciation, though a good one written by his agent, Richard Curtis. His star has since faded, but Longyear was once considered to be one of the greats in science fiction. He deserves more than that.

So I'll say a very few words here. If early on you're offended, please keep reading. I promise all will be made right. 

Back in the 1970s, Longyear was one of George Scithers' two most celebrated discoveries, along with John M. Ford, in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. As a writer, his every story, especially the Circusworld ones set on the planet Baraboo, hit the sweet spot with fans. As a human being, he was an absolute asshole.

The stories of the man's offensive behavior and curmudgeonly insults of his writing peers (in all fairness, he did punch up as well as down, though at some of the most beloved figures in the field) were legion. Thankfully, time has erased most of the specifics for me. Though I vividly remember the fanzine article he wrote about the Hugo Award, where he said that if he won one and had only enough room in his suitcase for the trophy or his soiled underwear, he would choose the underwear.

But then he went into rehab.

He went in belligerent and offensive, and he came out likeable. Again, I never knew Barry Longyear very well. But anyone could see that person he used to be was not the real him. The real him, it turned out, was a nice guy.

That nice guy, according to the Locus obit, founded Dragon Slayers, a Narcotics Anonymous group that he selflessly helped run for decades. That tells us a lot.

Longyear's career highpoint came when his novella, Enemy Mine, in which a human and an alien at war with each other must make common cause in order to survive. won the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and John W. Campbell Awards. A low point ensued when it was made into a movie. Word at the time was that the suits looked at the script and said, "Where's the mine?" and so one was inserted. Reportedly, the whole thing went down from there. The movie was a flop and by all accounts deserved to be one.

Curtis relates, I'm sure correctly, that Longyear wrote two sequels to the story and his own version of what the movie should have been. A year ago, Twentieth Century Studios decided they wanted to do a remake of the movie. Contracts were signed in time for the ailing author to know that there was a good chance his story would be done up as it deserved. I could have wished that he had lived long enough to see the movie and that the movie was everything it should have been. But writers live on hope, and Longyear lived long enough to experience that hope one last time.

Go with God, Barry. I hope your movie is one of the great ones.

Above: The picture of Barry Longyear was taken from Hazelden Publishing.

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