Nigel Kneale, 1922 - 2006.

Pioneering British screenwriter Nigel Kneale, best known for the Quatermass TV serials and films that began in the 1950s, has died at the age of 84.... The writer has been cited as an influence by filmmaker John Carpenter and author Stephen King.

The BBC.

Kneale's work remains rare in my experience of, shall we say, speculative screenwriting in that it has never become old-fashioned. Even when his stories date from another era, such as the time when we stood on the threshold of space travel, they hum with urgency - an urgency of discovery - and take us through experience that leaves us brighter, more aware and speculating of all the mysteries about us that remain to be clarified by the avatars of art and science.

[...]

Updated through 11/2.

Science fiction mourns Nigel Kneale because he was one of the genre's most illuminating humanists - not a sentimentalist like Bradbury, or a myth-maker like Frank Herbert, but a confrontational writer in the tradition of Orwell and Huxley, who used the genre as a metaphor for the problematic times in which we find ourselves.

Tim Lucas

See also: Robert Simpson's tribute for HammerWeb, Jack Kibble-White's 2003 interview for Off the Telly, clips from the BBC's interview for the 2005 documentary, The Kneale Tapes and the Wikipedia entry.

Update, 11/2: Mark Gatiss in the Guardian: "Hating the tag 'science-fiction writer,' he preferred to think he used the genre to explore his personal concerns. It's ironic that, although he can lay claim to having invented popular TV, the fact that he wasn't known as a 'straight' writer has forever kept him in the 'cult' bracket, legendary to some but never considered alongside Dennis Potter, David Mercer and Alan Plater.... A true pioneer has passed - and the light of Mars will shine a little brighter tonight."

Posted by dwhudson at November 1, 2006 4:54 AM