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Respected SF author Vonda N. McIntyre has died, aged 70, after a short illness.

Known to Star Trek fans both for her original novels including The Entropy Effect that gave Hikaru Sulu his first name, and for the novelisations of the Spock Trilogy (Star Trek II-IV),  she penned many original novels, including the Starfarers series, and her multiple-award winning tale Dreamsnake.

Tributes have been paid on social media:

Jo Fletcher released the following:

Award-winning Seattle science fiction author Vonda N. McIntyre died April 1, 2019, of pancreatic cancer. She was 70.

McIntyre wrote novels, short stories and media tie-in books, edited a groundbreaking anthology of feminist SF, and founded the Clarion West Writing Workshop. She won the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards for her 1979 novel Dreamsnake, and won the Nebula again for her 1996 novel The Moon and the Sun. Her short stories were also nominated for awards. In media fiction, she will probably be most remembered as the author who gave Ensign Sulu a first name (Hikaru) in her Star Trek novel The Entropy Effect: that name was later written into one of the Star Trek films. With Susan Janice Anderson, McIntyre edited one of the first feminist science fiction anthologies (Aurora: Beyond Equality). She was a participant in the Women in Science Fiction Symposium edited by Jeffrey D. Smith with Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Ursula K. Le Guin, Samuel R. Delany, James Tiptree Jr. and others. Her Nebula-winning fantasy novel The Moon and the Sun has been made into an as-yet-unreleased film, The King’s Daughter, starring Pierce Brosnan. Much of the film was shot in Versailles, and McIntyre delighted in telling how kind Brosnan was to her when she visited the set.

McIntyre founded Book View Café, an online publishing collective for member authors to sell their ebooks. When she developed some joint problems in her hands, she began making what she called ‘beaded sea creatures’, which she regularly gave to friends and charity auctions. She had a lively correspondence with Scientific American columnist Martin Gardner about them, and some of them are in the Smithsonian Institution.

Vonda Neel McIntyre was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1948. Her family moved to Seattle in the early 1960s, and she earned a B.Sc. in biology from the University of Washington. She went on to graduate school in genetics at UW. In 1970, she attended the Clarion SF Writing Workshop – and in 1971, with the blessing of Clarion founder Robin Scott Wilson, she founded the Clarion West Writing Workshop in Seattle. McIntyre continued to be involved with the workshop throughout her life. She enjoyed a close friendship with Ursula K. Le Guin throughout her career that including various editing and publishing ventures.

The Seattle science fiction community recalls McIntyre as the fairy godmother to hundreds of Clarion West graduates, many of whom have gone on to be bright stars in the publishing world. ‘Vonda was one of Clarion West’s founders, and has always been our fairy godmother, bringing comfort and whimsy to class after class with her impromptu visits and gifts of crocheted sea creatures,’ said novelist Nisi Shawl, a Clarion West board member. ‘She was the Good Witch of the Northwest, a fearless public reader and a stellar private writer who is missed by all.’

Vonda’s historical fantasy novel The Moon and the Sun (which won the Nebula Award, beating A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin) and her highly influential, multi-award-winning first novel Dreamsnake are published in the UK by Jo Fletcher Books.

Publisher Jo Fletcher: ‘Like all Vonda’s friends and admirers, the diagnosis came as a shock, but she handled it as she did everything in her life: with strength and bravery. She has enriched our lives, with her writing, and perhaps even more, with her championing and support of new writers. She will be sorely missed.’

A memorial service will be arranged in Seattle. McIntyre requested that, in lieu of flowers, people make memorial donations to one of their favourite charities.