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Howard Waldrop

Howard Waldrop (born September 15, 1946) is a science fiction author who works almost entirely in short fiction. His work could be best described as strange and wonderful: no one else seems to think quite like Howard, which makes for stories that are, well, hard to describe but magic to read.

Waldrop's stories combine elements such as alternate history, American popular culture, the American south, old movies (and character actors), classical mythology, and rock 'n' roll music. The elements are sometimes obscure or elliptical but, like buried treasure, there is excitement when they are discovered by the reader. And the stories are always entertaining: "Night of the Cooters" is War of the Worlds told from the perspective of a Texas sheriff (a homage to Slim Pickens); "Heirs of the Perisphere" involves robotic Disney characters waking up in the far future; "Fin de Cyclé" describes the Dreyfus affair from the perspective of bicycle enthusiasts.

Waldrop's work is invariably out of print and routinely hard to find.

  1. The Texas-Israeli War: 1999 (novel, with Jake Saunders, 1974)
  2. Them Bones (novel, 1984)
  3. Howard Who (1986)
  4. All About Strange Monsters of the Recent Past (1987)
  5. A Dozen Tough Jobs (novella, 1989)
  6. Night of the Cooters (1990)
  7. Going Home Again (1999)
  8. Dream Factories and Radio Pictures (e-book, 2001)
  9. Custer's Last Jump and Other Collaborations (2003)

Some of these books have been reprinted in omnibus editions.

Several of his stories have been nominated for awards; "The Ugly Chickens" (1980) -- about the dodo -- won a Nebula.

Born in Mississippi, Waldrop spent most of his life in Texas. He moved to Washington for a few years but has since returned. He is, to put it mildly, an avid fly fisherman.

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