Ben Bova, Beloved Sci-Fi Author, Dead at 88 Due to COVID-19

Beloved sci-fi author Ben Bova has reportedly died at age 88 due to COVID-19. In a post on Twitter, one of Bova’s relatives, Kathryn Brusco, shared the sad news. “My Uncle Ben…by marriage…science fiction icon, author, adventure lover, story teller, futurist, and my son’s namesake, Ben Bova, has passed away this morning from COVID-19 related pneumonia and a stroke,” she wrote. “Needless to say, he will be missed terribly by us and the the world.”

Bova was a celebrated science-fiction author who was a six-time Hugo Award winner. He wrote more than 120 books that were published, since the 1960s. Some of his more well-known original series include the Watchmen, Orion, and Grand Tour. Bova occasionally work in the TV industry, serving as a science advisor for the 1973 television series The Starlost, and also co-wrote the screenplay for an episode of the children’s science-fiction television series Land of the Lost. In 2010, Bova was a consultant on the Jude Law and Forest Whitaker film Repo Men and a planned film adaptation of Altered Carbon, based on the 2002 Richard K. Morgan novel of the same name. That project would later go on to be turned into a series produced by Netflix.

Bova’s death has had many fans and peers taking to social media to mourn the late author’s passing, with R.A. Salvatore writing, “Oh no! Spent many hours with Ben…memorable dinner where Monty Python entered a stuffy Atlanta restaurant, and, well, kicked the stuffing out of it. Good man. He will be missed.”

“Just heard that we lost science fiction titan Ben Bova to COVID-19,” wrote author Kyle Cassidy. “I visited him once when I photographed his writing space. He was super nice to me. It didn’t have to be this way. Wear your mask, stay home, listen to scientists, they know stuff.”

Hugo Award-nominee Scott Edelman shared a personal story about Bova, revealing that the editor once sent him a kind rejection letter for a story he submitted to sci-fi magazine Analoge, which Bova was editor of for a period of time. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” Edelman tweeted to Brusco.” Ben was the first editor to ever take the time to send me a personal rejection letter, way back in 1972, and it was my privilege to occasionally publish his stories when I edited Science Fiction Age during the ’90s. He will be missed.”