Writer John Crowley has died. He’s slightly difficult to talk about, in that I knew him (first from bumping into him at conventions and getting him to sign stuff, after which he friended me on Facebook), but not particularly well. I liked and collected his work, but he was a bit more hit and miss with me than the nigh-on-universal critical praise he received. I tried reading Little, Big around 18 or 19 and it didn’t click for me. (Despite which, I have the Gollancz first hardback edition of Little, Big, done in a ridiculously small print run of 300 copies, bought from Willie Siros’ personal collection and inscribed to him.) It was a slog getting through the first 120 pages of Engine Summer…but the last 40 pages are brilliant, and heartbreaking. Great Work of Time is a swell novella in which time a secret organization of time travelers trying to preserve the British Empire results in some rather radical changes up the line. I have all four volumes, but haven’t even tried reading his acclaimed Aegypt series yet.
I had just started reading Two Chapters in a Family Chronicle, one of four smallish books in The John Crowley Conway Miscellany set off Kickstarter (for which I still have signed copies available), when I heard news of his death.
He seemed like a nice guy, and a fine writer, and I enjoyed talking to him on the few occasions I got a chance to.
He will be missed.
