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I always feel weird about noting the death of someone I knew but was not close to--as if I were standing in the back of a crowd--in this case, a huge crowd--jumping up and down crying "Me too! Me too!" It's not about me, and I wasn't a close friend of David Hartwell's, and yet I find I'm more upset by his sudden, awful death than our relationship might have warranted.
When we both worked at Tor in the late 80s and early 90s, we were sometimes a source of exasperation, one to the other. I was Tom Doherty's assistant, and sometimes my job was to say No. David was an editor, and a passionate advocate for each of his books, and that sometimes led to clashes with other editors, or to taking up more resources than was strictly appropriate in the situation. (I could give examples, but you'd be bored to death, honest.) It was perhaps a function of our relationship--co-workers but not colleagues, exactly--that we were friendly rather than friends. Still, whenever I ran into him, in New York or more recently at a convention, he'd flash that wide, delighted, slightly manic smile--all the more dazzling when he was in full convention dress in a symphony of plaids, and an indescribable tie--and we'd talk for a few minutes about work, or his kids, or books, the way you do.
But damn, he was a fixed point in the world of SF publishing and fandom. He was a one-word brand: Hartwell. To listen to him talk, in the halls of Tor or on a panel or at a dinner party, was enlightening and entertaining and occasionally exasperating. He came at SF from the vantage point of someone who knew a lot, thought a lot, and relished knowing and thinking and talking about books and writing and fandom and politics and history.
It really does feel as if this is impossible, as if there's a hole much larger than the one David would have physically made, punched in the world.
When we both worked at Tor in the late 80s and early 90s, we were sometimes a source of exasperation, one to the other. I was Tom Doherty's assistant, and sometimes my job was to say No. David was an editor, and a passionate advocate for each of his books, and that sometimes led to clashes with other editors, or to taking up more resources than was strictly appropriate in the situation. (I could give examples, but you'd be bored to death, honest.) It was perhaps a function of our relationship--co-workers but not colleagues, exactly--that we were friendly rather than friends. Still, whenever I ran into him, in New York or more recently at a convention, he'd flash that wide, delighted, slightly manic smile--all the more dazzling when he was in full convention dress in a symphony of plaids, and an indescribable tie--and we'd talk for a few minutes about work, or his kids, or books, the way you do.
But damn, he was a fixed point in the world of SF publishing and fandom. He was a one-word brand: Hartwell. To listen to him talk, in the halls of Tor or on a panel or at a dinner party, was enlightening and entertaining and occasionally exasperating. He came at SF from the vantage point of someone who knew a lot, thought a lot, and relished knowing and thinking and talking about books and writing and fandom and politics and history.
It really does feel as if this is impossible, as if there's a hole much larger than the one David would have physically made, punched in the world.