Saying goodbye to Jack Williamson

2006 is now in the past and so is Jack Williamson. He passed away last year at 98 years of age. This article is a great reflection on his legacy.

Personally, I must thank him for creating the term "terraforming" which I used as the title of my first screenplay: Terraform. Williamson had a great imagination and was an astounding futurist. Most impressive to me were his fictional descriptions of anti-matter power. Like Stephen Hawking who, as referenced in this recent article, believed that matter/antimatter annihilation would be our most likely way of getting near the speed of light in space travel, Williamson wrote earlier in support of this same hopeful power source. We have yet to harness the power of these annihilations but our forays into supercolliders could certainly yield insights over the upcoming decades.

Thank you Mr. Williamson for your insightful speculative fiction. You'll be sorely missed.