Yesterday evening news started to come in that Peter Weston had died. I had to go to bed before we got confirmation, but Kevin did a post for the Hugo Awards website here. Locus also has a brief obituary.
Peter will always be most famous in fandom as the man who created the modern Hugo Award trophy (the rocket bit, the base is different each year), but he was also a noted fanzine editor, con runner (including chairing a Worldcon) and editor. He was also one of the nicest people I have met among old-time UK fans. I didn’t know him that well, but what I did know made me wish I had known him better.
He was also one of the nicest people I have met among old-time UK fans.
Exactly. I just heard the bad news this morning. An excellent person, and a sad loss to us all.
You may well be correct that the rockets are what he’ll be remembered for, but I hope some will remember him for transforming back in the 1960s the then-dreadful standards of writing about sf in fan publications, and forty years later. giving a much-needed shot in the arm to the field of fan history.
And yes to the kindness.