“Thanks to new information coming to light, we have updated the 1956 Hugo Award history page with the finalists that appeared on the ballot that year. We thank Olav Rokne for bringing to our attention an article on page 15 of the 1956 Worldcon Progress Report 3 that included the names of the finalists along with voting instructions.”
Dunno, I had to look him up on isfdb (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?14025) and he had a bunch of stories 55/56 and then only a couple more stories before never publishing again. It’d be nice to find out more, actually.
You did better than I. Google kept giving me hits for combos of Henry and the word ‘still’. The only hit was for a story in ‘If’ called ‘Sales Resistance’ 1956.
You’d think being part of a quartet of Silverberg, Ellison and Herbert would imply he had some substantial talent.
Someone of the same name also co-authored a biography of Gus Grissom called “Starfall”. No reason for it to be the same person of course but there’s a potential connection. Quite possibly he found a more lucrative job and (mostly) got out of the SF game.
An Amazon review of the Grissom book says “Stitched together like a cheap baseball, the book is co-authored [and I blush to use the term] by Mrs. Grissom and Henry Still, a newspaperman turned aerospace executive. ”
“Henry Still” turns up on the Library of Congress catalogue as an author of some odd pop science things in the late 1960s early 1970s, including books about man-made men, showing livers on TV, survival of the human race etc. Oh, and one about the male mid-life crisis. I really hope it’s the same guy 🙂
That is suspiciously Timothy like…”Kevin Morrow gulped the last of his coffee and felt its bitter acid gurgle around his stomach. He stared moodily through the plastic port where the spangled slurt of stars glittered against the black satin of endless night and a familiar curve of the space station swung ponderously around its hub. “
The best novel shortlist has three very strong contenders with The End of Eternity (a personal favourite), The Long Tomorrow and the eventual winner Double Star. It’s also nice seeing two women finalists on a Hugo shortlist in the 1950s.
Most promising writer is a very strong category as well with three future classics and well, Henry Still, whoever he may have been.
UPDATE: The New York Times lists “Henry Still” under Deaths on page 31 of its 13 October 1955 issue. There are no mentions of him in earlier issues.
The time-suck dangers of newspaper research though. While trolling through the hits I found a book advertisement for a novel by W H Manville (if that isn’t a prime contender for a CH pseudonym I don’t know what is!!!). It’s called The Palace of Money, sells for $4.95 and the pull quote reads “A scurfy bum in an old tuxedo came up off a bench in front of the Plaza. ‘Say, old chap,’ the bum said with a man-of-the-worldly air, ‘could you help out a fellow member of the regiment with eighty-six fifty for a case of brandy.” MANVILLE !!
Even allowing for some delayed posthumous publication I don’t think it can be the same guy – although if someone took charge of his literary legacy and sold his remaining stories then I suppose it’s feasible.
How do you look at the story – I’ve just tried to use their archive but am being defeated, possibly by my own incompetence.
It was a general obit page, and Still was just listed alphabetically with 30-40 other names under “Deaths.” I’d have saved you the .pdf if there was a full obit. I’m using an institutional subscription so maybe that make a difference access-wise. There were several stories about the pop sci guy with that name and his books from 1966 onward though. I can save and send the .pdfs of those if you want. I tried searches with Hank Still and Henry S. Till too, out of curiosity. I currently have a one-month subscription to a geneaological site for some other research I am doing, so I’ll run his name through their databases when I get home. This is my kind of fun!
You seem to need a sub, so I’m currently stuck. If any of them say anything helpful like “Following a brief but unsuccessful career in science fiction, Henry Still turned to journalism…..” then that would be rather cool.
I don’t want to put you out, but if you do want to send anything you can use my top-quality throwaway email address of mark.kitteh@gmail.com to make contact.
OK, have compiled a page and a half of details from his life and publishing career and found three photos. Alas, no kittehs. I’m sending it and some newspaper articles and photos to you Mark. Spoiler: he chomps on a pipe (of course he does!!)
20 years as newspaperman, incl 4 years as city editor of Rocky Mountain News in Denver. 10 years (as of 1970) as publicist in aerospace industry working for Northrup Ventura (later Northrup Grumman). Had six kids. Lived in Thousand Oaks, Calif. President of the Rotary Club 1973-74.
The book “Surviving the Male Midlife Crisis” (1977) was indeed, his, and one blogger singles it out in the genre of newspaperman memoirs by saying ““I hope Henry Still (at left) isn’t still alive, and I hope he died peacefully of ripe old age, or his wife murdered him in his sleep and enjoyed it, because I’d feel just terrible about outing him as all of male-journalism-dom’s biggest douchebag ever if he were still alive.”
I guess the memoir is the obvious place to start for juicier details. 🙂 ** takes a bow **
I’m rather tempted to order that memoir and see if it confirms for sure that it’s the same guy. It can be had second hand for a price which is merely silly, rather than ludicrous. I could also try and see if knowing his hometown now shakes anything loose.
Sure, fine by me. I don’t need credit though, just wanted to see what I could find as a personal challenge. I gave myself a two hour limit yesterday to devote to the task. I think it’s all the same guy. There’s probably more to be found. I didn’t exhaust all my avenues.
Mark: Not sure what his actual hometown of birth is or what his death date is. There were too many approximately in the Social Security records to be sure. On my documentary travels, I did find an older 19th Henry Still who seems to have been a writer of some eminence associated with Harper’s Weeklyin the 1860s, and who had a grandson called Henry/Harry Still operating in Kansas in 1940, which is MidWest and could possible be related to a Henry Still who turns up as a print-paper guy in Colorado in the 1950s (his father?). I wasn’t sure enough of the connection to put it on my master chronology, but you may want to explore the connection futher –or CF might.
Actually, I just realized from looking at that link again that the 19th c emigrant ancestor was Charles Henry Still, and I did find a copyright registration in the 1970s for one of your guy’s books that said C. Henry Still, and a business admin manual from 2011 to Charles Henry Still so I am now feeling more confident that we’ve located an actual family tree. Business admin guy might have more details and papers from the family archival history and may know something about the Hugo if he could be contacted.
Camestros Felapton 
32 responses to “Ooh 1956 Hugo Page Updated”
The ones that pop out for me are that Leigh Brackett and CL Moore now both have “original” Hugo finalist status along with their retro Hugos.
Two of the “promising author” finalists are very good calls (Ellison and Herbert) while the last one (Henry Still) barely published anything else!
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That category looks quite prophetic 🙂 So who was Henry Still?
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Dunno, I had to look him up on isfdb (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?14025) and he had a bunch of stories 55/56 and then only a couple more stories before never publishing again. It’d be nice to find out more, actually.
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You did better than I. Google kept giving me hits for combos of Henry and the word ‘still’. The only hit was for a story in ‘If’ called ‘Sales Resistance’ 1956.
You’d think being part of a quartet of Silverberg, Ellison and Herbert would imply he had some substantial talent.
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Someone of the same name also co-authored a biography of Gus Grissom called “Starfall”. No reason for it to be the same person of course but there’s a potential connection. Quite possibly he found a more lucrative job and (mostly) got out of the SF game.
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I wondered if it was a pseudonym or maybe they died tragically…
Mike and File770 will probably know.
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An Amazon review of the Grissom book says “Stitched together like a cheap baseball, the book is co-authored [and I blush to use the term] by Mrs. Grissom and Henry Still, a newspaperman turned aerospace executive. ”
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Harsh review!
I’ve asked Mike, in case this is a well-known factoid.
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“Henry Still” turns up on the Library of Congress catalogue as an author of some odd pop science things in the late 1960s early 1970s, including books about man-made men, showing livers on TV, survival of the human race etc. Oh, and one about the male mid-life crisis. I really hope it’s the same guy 🙂
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It’d be great if he was the same chap, just as a story. Mike didn’t know anything more about him either, unfortunately.
However, I’ve found the text of one of his stories available online, and my main question is whether Timothy is older than we realised…
https://archive.org/stream/1955-10_IF/1955-10_IF_djvu.txt
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That is suspiciously Timothy like…”Kevin Morrow gulped the last of his coffee and felt its bitter acid gurgle around his stomach. He stared moodily through the plastic port where the spangled slurt of stars glittered against the black satin of endless night and a familiar curve of the space station swung ponderously around its hub. “
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Clearly etched on his face were the lines of too many half-rigged elections, too many compromises.
*snort*
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Spangled slurt? I hope that’s an OCR error.
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I sort of hope it isn’t
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It’s an OCR error – should be “spangled skirt”. Sorry to disappoint!
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😦
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The best novel shortlist has three very strong contenders with The End of Eternity (a personal favourite), The Long Tomorrow and the eventual winner Double Star. It’s also nice seeing two women finalists on a Hugo shortlist in the 1950s.
Most promising writer is a very strong category as well with three future classics and well, Henry Still, whoever he may have been.
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I know it’s only a typo, but I want Cordwainer Smith’s “The Game of Hat and Dragon” to be real, so very, very much.
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Posting just to tick the checkboxes
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UPDATE: The New York Times lists “Henry Still” under Deaths on page 31 of its 13 October 1955 issue. There are no mentions of him in earlier issues.
The time-suck dangers of newspaper research though. While trolling through the hits I found a book advertisement for a novel by W H Manville (if that isn’t a prime contender for a CH pseudonym I don’t know what is!!!). It’s called The Palace of Money, sells for $4.95 and the pull quote reads “A scurfy bum in an old tuxedo came up off a bench in front of the Plaza. ‘Say, old chap,’ the bum said with a man-of-the-worldly air, ‘could you help out a fellow member of the regiment with eighty-six fifty for a case of brandy.” MANVILLE !!
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Even allowing for some delayed posthumous publication I don’t think it can be the same guy – although if someone took charge of his literary legacy and sold his remaining stories then I suppose it’s feasible.
How do you look at the story – I’ve just tried to use their archive but am being defeated, possibly by my own incompetence.
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It was a general obit page, and Still was just listed alphabetically with 30-40 other names under “Deaths.” I’d have saved you the .pdf if there was a full obit. I’m using an institutional subscription so maybe that make a difference access-wise. There were several stories about the pop sci guy with that name and his books from 1966 onward though. I can save and send the .pdfs of those if you want. I tried searches with Hank Still and Henry S. Till too, out of curiosity. I currently have a one-month subscription to a geneaological site for some other research I am doing, so I’ll run his name through their databases when I get home. This is my kind of fun!
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You seem to need a sub, so I’m currently stuck. If any of them say anything helpful like “Following a brief but unsuccessful career in science fiction, Henry Still turned to journalism…..” then that would be rather cool.
I don’t want to put you out, but if you do want to send anything you can use my top-quality throwaway email address of mark.kitteh@gmail.com to make contact.
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mark.kitteh@gmail.com
*snort*
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Can’t be the same one surely.
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OK, have compiled a page and a half of details from his life and publishing career and found three photos. Alas, no kittehs. I’m sending it and some newspaper articles and photos to you Mark. Spoiler: he chomps on a pipe (of course he does!!)
20 years as newspaperman, incl 4 years as city editor of Rocky Mountain News in Denver. 10 years (as of 1970) as publicist in aerospace industry working for Northrup Ventura (later Northrup Grumman). Had six kids. Lived in Thousand Oaks, Calif. President of the Rotary Club 1973-74.
The book “Surviving the Male Midlife Crisis” (1977) was indeed, his, and one blogger singles it out in the genre of newspaperman memoirs by saying ““I hope Henry Still (at left) isn’t still alive, and I hope he died peacefully of ripe old age, or his wife murdered him in his sleep and enjoyed it, because I’d feel just terrible about outing him as all of male-journalism-dom’s biggest douchebag ever if he were still alive.”
I guess the memoir is the obvious place to start for juicier details. 🙂 ** takes a bow **
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Wow. Incredible detective work!
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Can I put this in a blog post? (Crediting you obviously!)
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And I have replied!
I’m rather tempted to order that memoir and see if it confirms for sure that it’s the same guy. It can be had second hand for a price which is merely silly, rather than ludicrous. I could also try and see if knowing his hometown now shakes anything loose.
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Sure, fine by me. I don’t need credit though, just wanted to see what I could find as a personal challenge. I gave myself a two hour limit yesterday to devote to the task. I think it’s all the same guy. There’s probably more to be found. I didn’t exhaust all my avenues.
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Mark: Not sure what his actual hometown of birth is or what his death date is. There were too many approximately in the Social Security records to be sure. On my documentary travels, I did find an older 19th Henry Still who seems to have been a writer of some eminence associated with Harper’s Weeklyin the 1860s, and who had a grandson called Henry/Harry Still operating in Kansas in 1940, which is MidWest and could possible be related to a Henry Still who turns up as a print-paper guy in Colorado in the 1950s (his father?). I wasn’t sure enough of the connection to put it on my master chronology, but you may want to explore the connection futher –or CF might.
https://jrm.phys.ksu.edu/genealogy/needham/d0001/I374.html
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Actually, I just realized from looking at that link again that the 19th c emigrant ancestor was Charles Henry Still, and I did find a copyright registration in the 1970s for one of your guy’s books that said C. Henry Still, and a business admin manual from 2011 to Charles Henry Still so I am now feeling more confident that we’ve located an actual family tree. Business admin guy might have more details and papers from the family archival history and may know something about the Hugo if he could be contacted.
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