Thomas Disch (1940-2008)

I was sorry to hear today that Thomas Disch took his own life on July 4. He was the author of several very fine books, particularly Camp Concentration, On Wings of Song, and 334, and in his earlier career was often characterized as a "New Wave" writer. I read all his sf intensively in the 1980s and much enjoyed and admired it. His work was nominated for the Nebula and Hugo awards multiple times, but he won the Hugo only for his book-length essay, The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of (which like most diatribes, failed to engage me). He wrote theater and opera criticism and poetry, as well as horror novels and at least one pulp novel, a 1960s formula Gothic Romance The House That Fear Built (written with John Sladek under the pseudonym Cassandra Knye) involving Nazis in a Gothic castle in Mexico.