Gordon R. Dickson

From Delusion World (1961) by Gordon R. Dickson

There had to be a reason why that isolated human colony had been able to survive right in the heart of the stars held by mankind’s implacable enemies. But nobody had been able to get to the quaintly named Dunroamin to find out.

If they had a secret defense, it could be the answer to a hundred planets’ prayers. And Feliz Gebrod realized as he came in for a crash landing that he’d know the secret sooner than he’d expected.

Except that what he encountered was a life-and-death riddle that had nothing to do with stellar defense. It was this: how can two mutually irreconcilable Utopias occupy the same space at the same time?

Biographical Notes

Birth: November 1, 1923, Edmonton, Canada
Death: January 31, 2001, Richfield, Minnesota

Author Gordon Rupert Dickson moved from Canada to the United States with his mother in 1936 after the death of his father, and to Minnesota in 1937. Dickson earned a B.A. in creative writing from the University of Minnesota in 1948 and attended graduate school from 1948-50. He studied with Sinclair Lewis, Robert Penn Warren, and Poul Anderson, among others. Dickson served in the army during World War II, was a supporter of the space program and attended most of the Apollo launches. He wrote novels and short stories, chiefly science fiction and fantasy. He is best known for the Childe Cycle novels, his unfinished series about the evolution of the human race.

Dickson won several awards including a 1965 Hugo award for Soldier, Ask Not (1964); a 1967 Nebula award for Call Him Lord (1966); a 1975 Skylark award; a 1977 August Derleth award for The Dragon and the George (1976); a 1978 Jupiter award for Time Storm (1977); a 1981 Hugo award for Lost Dorsai (1980); and a 1981 Hugo award for The Cloak and the Staff (1980). Dickson served as president of the Science Fiction Writers of America from 1969-71.

Selected Works
The titles below link to the catalog record in MnPALS, the Minnesota Historical Society’s library catalog. Please click on your browser's back button to return.

• Alien Art
• Dorsai! (also known as The Genetic General)
• The Dragon and the George
• The Final Encyclopedia
• Lost Dorsai: The New Dorsai Companion
• Necromancer
• Soldier, Ask Not
• The Tactics of Mistake
• Time Storm
• Wolf and Iron
• Young Bleys

Additional Resources

Minnesota Historical Society Links

• Search PALS Catalog for author - Searches for works by this author in the Minnesota Historical Society library
• Northern Lights Episode #175

Web Links

• Alpha Ralpha Boulevard - Bibliographies on science fiction authors, including Dickson
• Author Index - Author index to science fiction book reviews
• ISFDB (Internet Speculative Fiction Database) - Bibliography
• Fantastic Fiction - Brief biography and bibliography
• University of Minnesota - Gordon Rupert Dickson manuscript collection available at the Elmer L. Andersen library