I knew him for about forty years. We must have first met about the time he and I were regular contributors to Amazing and Fantastic, which were then edited by the much-admired Elinor Mavor. Fantastic was on its last legs in 1980, and I may have done Marvin a good turn when Elinor told me that they were going to fold the magazine with the April 1980 issue (right in the middle of my serial, “The White Isle”) and I, out of enlightened self-interest perhaps, but still self-interest, wrote a long letter to the publisher which (I was told) played a significant role in talking the publisher out of it. Fantastic limped along for two more issues, completing my serial and publishing a big chunk of Marvin’s The Amorous Umbrella in the final issue, calling it an “excerpt” because this really was the f
