The Sky Is Falling: Lester Del Rey

Del Rey, who is perhaps the hidden treasure of science fiction, first started publishing stories in pulp magazines in the late 1930s, at the dawn of the Golden Age of the SF genre. Del Rey was a member of the all-male literary banqueting club the Trap Door Spiders, which served as the basis of Isaac Asimov's fictional group of mystery solvers the Black Widowers. Del Rey himself was the model for the Emmanuel Rubin character. He was awarded the 1990 Grand Master Award by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America for lifetime achievement in science fiction for his innovative and articulate prose.