Lerner, Fred
Entry updated 27 January 2025. Tagged: Author, Editor.
(1945- ) US librarian, historian and bibliographer, now retired. He has written occasional reviews for SF Magazines beginning with Fantastic in 1969, as well as regularly reviewing sf for Voice of Youth Advocates and Wilson Library Bulletin. He edited SFRA Newsletter 1971-1974 and A Silverlock Companion (anth 1988), a study of Silverlock (1949) by John Myers Myers [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below]. His solo books include nonfiction about libraries and sf/fantasy. His only published short story, "Rosetta Stone" in Artemis for Spring 2000, concerns an Alien Library on the Moon. His novel In Memoriam (2024) is set a couple of centuries in the future of that story, and centres on a young man living in the remnant of humanity saved by an alien race after a Disaster wiped out most life on Earth; the hero is unusually interested in the alien society and becomes a focal point in dealing with the stresses in both the human and alien polities caused by the human presence. The novel plausibly imagines the social pressures on both hosts and guests on the alien planet. [RHo]
see also: FAAn Awards; Niekas.
Frederick Andrew Lerner
born Mount Vernon, New York: 27 December 1945
works
- In Memoriam: A Novel of the Terran Diaspora (New York: Fantastic Books, 2024) [hb/Thomas Nadick]
nonfiction
- Modern Science Fiction and the American Literary Community (Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1985) [nonfiction: hb/]
- A Bookman's Fantasy: How Science Fiction Became Respectable, and Other Essays (Framingham, Massachusetts: NESFA Press, 1995) [nonfiction: coll: chap: pb/Merle Insinga]
- The Story of Libraries: From the Invention of Writing to the Computer Age (New York: Continuum, 1998) [nonfiction: hb/]
- Libraries Through the Ages (New York: Continuum, 1999) [nonfiction: cut rev vt of the above: hb/]
- The Story of Libraries: From the Invention of Writing to the Computer Age: Second Edition (New York: Continuum, 2009) [nonfiction: exp vt of the above: hb/]
works as editor
- A Silverlock Companion (Center Harbor, New Hampshire: Niekas Publications, 1988) [nonfiction: anth: chap: John Myers Myers: pb/Celia Myers]
- Silverlock: Including the Silverlock Companion (Framingham, Massachusetts: NESFA Press, 2004) [omni: rev of the above with Silverlock (1949) by John Myers Myers: hb/Omar Rayyan]
- Sam Moskowitz. After All These Years ...: Sam Moskowitz on His Science Fiction Career (Center Harbor, New Hampshire: Niekas Publications, 1991) [nonfiction: chap: technically a special issue of Niekas (September 1991; #43a): comprising a long postal Interview conducted by Jeffrey Elliot: pb/]
- Jack Speer. Fancestral Voices (Framingham, Massachusetts: NESFA Press, 2004) [nonfiction: coll: pb/Charles Williams]
links
previous versions of this entry