Noted science fiction author dies

R.A. Lafferty, an award-winning and prolific science fiction author, has died in a Broken Arrow nursing home. He was 87. <br><br>Funeral services were planned Friday for Lafferty, who died Monday, said

Wednesday, March 20th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

R.A. Lafferty, an award-winning and prolific science fiction author, has died in a Broken Arrow nursing home. He was 87.

Funeral services were planned Friday for Lafferty, who died Monday, said Crystal Urias, a spokeswoman for Fitzgerald's Funeral Home.

The World Science Fiction Society gave Lafferty its Hugo Award in 1973 for his short story ``Eurema's Dam.''

He also won the 1995 Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award by the Oklahoma Department of Libraries for excellence in a body of literary work.

His other works include ``Past Master,'' a novel published in 1968; ``Okla Hannali,'' a historical novel published in 1972; other historical, science fiction and fantasy novels; and nearly 200 short stories.

Lafferty's science fiction stories included tales of a speeded-up world in which fads last only a few hours, a child's shoebox camera that makes things disappear and a group of archaeologists who unearth an old chimney that tells about the present, the past and the future.

Lafferty was born on Nov. 7, 1914, in Neola, Iowa. He attended the University of Tulsa and was a longtime resident of Tulsa.

His science fiction novels included ``The Reefs of Earth,'' ``Space Chantey,'' ``Fourth Mansions,'' ``The Devil Is Dead,'' ``Arrive at Easterwine: The Autobiography of a Ktistec Machine,'' ``Not to Mention Camels, Apocalypses, Archipelago, Aurelia'' and ``The Annals of Klepsis.''

Other science fiction novels by Lafferty included ``My Heart Leaps Up,'' ``Serpent's Egg,'' ``East of Laughter,'' ``The Elliptical Grave,'' ``Sinbad: The Thirteenth Voyage,'' ``Episodes of the Argo,'' ``Iron Tears,'' ``More Than Melchisedech'' and Tales of Midnight: More Than Melchisedech.

He also authored more than two dozen historical novels and books of short stories.