Brad Linaweaver

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Brad Linaweaver
BornBradford Swain Linaweaver
(1952-09-01)September 1, 1952
Washington, North Carolina, U.S.
DiedAugust 29, 2019(2019-08-29) (aged 66)
Apopka, Florida, U.S.
OccupationWriter
EducationFlorida State University
Rollins College (MFA)
GenreScience fiction, fantasy
Notable worksMoon of Ice
Website
community.fortunecity.ws./lavendar/ducksoup/393/brad.htm

Bradford Swain Linaweaver (September 1, 1952 – August 29, 2019) was an American science fiction writer, film producer, actor, and magazine publisher. Over a 40-year career, he completed a body of work including novels, short stories, and screenplays.

Early years and education

Brad Linaweaver was born September 1, 1952, in

Hollywood, he eventually settled at the family lake front home in Apopka
, which his father designed and built shortly after moving to Florida in 1958.

Career

Political essayist

In late 1970, during his freshman year at Florida State University, Linaweaver joined the local college chapter of the national conservative organization

William F. Buckley. Linaweaver and Buckley subsequently struck up a friendship and correspondence, which lasted decades until Buckley's death in 2008.[5] Through that relationship, Linaweaver eventually published essays in Buckley's magazine National Review.[4][6] Unknown to him at the time, Linaweaver's writing also caught the attention of Ronald Reagan.[4] In 1976, Reagan devoted one of his radio show broadcasts to a discussion of The Wish, praising Linaweaver in the process. Reagan summed up his commentary on Linaweaver with the line, "How right he is!"[7] The radio broadcast is included in the Reagan CD set In His Own Voice and in the book Stories in His Own Hand: The Everyday Wisdom of Ronald Reagan.[8] Linaweaver didn't learn about the endorsement from Reagan until decades later. He mused that if he had known about it earlier, it might have changed the trajectory of his career path. "I never would have had my career in Hollywood. I might have been a boring political hack in Washington, trying to capitalize on the Reagan endorsement to be a political speechwriter. I'd be a worse libertarian than I am today."[4] Instead, Linaweaver soon took up writing science fiction, and stories for movies, inserting his libertarian ideology into the works whenever feasible.[4][6] In a 2007 interview, he noted that "I've been getting libertarian messages into everything for a quarter of a century". But, he observed, not every genre lent itself to his form of political promotionalism. "My involvement with movies has been mostly low-budget, exploitation stuff where ideology is not that relevant. When you're writing science fiction for a New York publisher, you actually achieve something when you slip in a libertarian idea. But with independent, exploitation, low-budget Hollywood, there's already an anti-authoritarian attitude. That culture is by nature fairly libertarian. There's less need to be a propagandist."[4]

Film

Linaweaver began his film career in 1978 with an original story credit for The Brain Leeches, the film that also jump started the career of prodigious Hollywood director producer (and sometimes professional wrestler[9]) Fred Olen Ray.[2] The Brain Leeches was completed, on budget, for $298.00. His association with Ray continued throughout Linaweaver's life, and included work on Jack-O which Linaweaver wrote and Ray produced, as well as later projects like Super Shark, a 2011 Ray film where Linaweaver was executive producer.[2][10] Linaweaver's long association with independent film also included writing credits on low budget direct-to-video titles like The Boneyard Collection, Space Babes Meet the Monsters and The Low Budget Time Machine. Linaweaver's association with Ray, and others, led to a number of small acting roles, both uncredited and 16 credited in numerous independent films.

Science fiction

Linaweaver's first published science fiction sale was in the July 1980 issue of

Fantastic with the short story The Competitor, which was later adapted as a radio play and stage production by the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company.[11][12][13]

Moon of Ice

What soon followed is considered Linaweaver's

hollow earth, and a moon made of ice), some found fault with the story telling, opining that the torrent of information "numbs rather than stimulates".[16]

Other novels

His novel

Battlestar Galactica novels with actor Richard Hatch, and Anarquia with J. Kent Hastings, an alternate history treatment of the Spanish Civil War.[19][20] The first collection of his short stories was published under the title Clownface.[21]

Over his career, Linaweaver wrote more than 50 stories that found their way into print.[2]

Collaborations and awards

Linaweaver's 1995 story collaboration with Victor Koman, The Light That Blinds featured an occult battle between Aleister Crowley and Adolf Hitler.[22]

In 1993, Linaweaver's short story Unmerited Favor was published in Mike Resnick's anthology Alternate Warriors.

In 1998, Linaweaver's short story And to the Republic For Which It Stands was published in

Alternate Generals III
.

In 2004, he co-authored Worlds of Tomorrow with former movie magazine editor and film memorabilia collector Forrest J Ackerman. The hardcover coffee table book featured cover art from science fiction's Golden Age, from Ackerman's considerable collection, and included full color reproductions and commentary from the authors.[23]

Linaweaver shared a second

Ed Kramer for co-editing Free Space, a libertarian science fiction anthology from TOR books.[24]

Several of his short stories received Honorable Mention in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror by Ellen Datlow. Those stories included The Lon Chaney Factory, Clutter, A Real Babe, and Chump Hoist. The Science Fiction story, Wells of Wisdom made the preliminary Nebula ballot and was part of the Galaxy Audio Project, read by Catherine Oxenberg.

Web series

Linaweaver also wrote and produced online content, including the award-winning web series Silicon Assassin, starring Richard Hatch, currently available on YouTube.[25]

Magazine publishing

Linaweaver's many years in Hollywood, and the stories and personalities he had come to know while living there, culminated in the creation of movie magazine Mondo Cult, with Linaweaver as publisher.

Georgia State Representative Chesley V. Morton. Mondo Cult is edited by former Famous Monsters of Filmland editor, Jessie Lilley.[3][27]

Heinlein's brass cannon

Linaweaver owned a signaling gun, or small brass cannon, which had originally belonged to science fiction writer

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.[28] In that novel, Heinlein refers to the cannon, in a parable implying that self-government is an illusion caused by failure to understand reality. For nearly 30 years, the firing of the brass cannon was a July 4 tradition at the Heinlein residence. Virginia Heinlein retained the cannon after her husband's death in 1988, and it was bequeathed to Linaweaver in her will, after Virginia died in 2003. Linaweaver restored the cannon to working order and subsequently posted a 2007 video of it being fired several times (with very small charges) on YouTube.[29]

Death

Brad Linaweaver, age 66, died August 29, 2019, of cancer at his home in Apopka, Florida.[2]

References

  1. ^ "Obituary - June Swain Linaweaver". Orlando Sentinel. August 4, 2005. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
  2. ^ a b c d e "Brad Linaweaver (1952-2019)". Locus Publications. September 3, 2019. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
  3. ^ a b "Merely A Century - Forry is 100". MondoCult.com. Retrieved January 3, 2020.
  4. ^ a b c d e f "Libertarian Screenwriter Brad Linaweaver Slams Neocons". Hollywood Investigator. August 12, 2007. Retrieved December 20, 2019.
  5. ^ a b Brad Linaweaver. "Chasing Paper - An Announcement from the Publisher". MondoCult.com. Retrieved January 4, 2020.
  6. ^ a b John DeChancie. "Brad Linaweaver - Guest of Honor". MondoCult.com. Retrieved January 4, 2020.
  7. ^ "Ronald Reagan's Radio Show About Mondo Cult's Brad Linaweaver". Mondo Cult TV. September 2019. Retrieved December 20, 2019.
  8. Kiron K. Skinner (November 1, 2001). "In His Own Voice"
    . Simon and Schuster - Google Play. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
  9. ISBN 978-0-7864-8496-6
    .
  10. ^ Brad Linaweaver (2016). "Trick and Treat - (Some candy from our publisher)". MondoCult.com. Retrieved January 4, 2020.
  11. ^ a b "In Memoriam-Brad Linaweaver". AmazingStories.com. September 12, 2019. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
  12. ^ "The Competitor part 1-2". Atlanta Radio Theatre Company. October 15, 2010. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
  13. ^ Brad Linaweaver (2018). "A Man For All Reasons - a personal tribute to Richard Hatch". Mondo Cult. Retrieved December 23, 2019.
  14. ^ "Moon of Ice". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
  15. ISBN 978-1-932100-94-5
    .
  16. ^ "Moon of Ice". Kirkus Review. February 15, 1987. Retrieved December 22, 2019.
  17. ISBN 978-1-57297-098-4
    .
  18. ^ "Books by Brad Linaweaver". Simon and Schuster. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
  19. ^ "An alternative history novel that takes anarchism seriously - out of step". Archived from the original on April 26, 2015. Retrieved April 12, 2015.
  20. ISBN 978-0-918736-64-2
    .
  21. ISBN 978-1-58445-096-2
    .
  22. ^ Kramer, Edward E. Dark Destiny: Proprietors of Fate. Clarkston, GA: White Wolf Publishing, 1995, pp. 232–51
  23. ISBN 978-1888054934
    .
  24. ^ "Review:"Free Space"". Susan Stepney. August 4, 2002. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
  25. ^ [1]|YouTube - Silicon Assassin series
  26. ^ "Fond Memories of "Mr. Sci-Fi"". Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of Amererica. January 18, 2017. Retrieved January 3, 2020.
  27. ^ "Mondo Cult - Welcome to the world". Mondo Cult Magazine. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
  28. ^ "In Memoriam-Brad Linaweaver". Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA). September 3, 2019. Retrieved December 20, 2019.
  29. YouTube

External links

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