Larry Eisenberg

Born in New York on December 21, 1919, Lawrence Eisenberg was an American biomedical engineer and science fiction writer. For many years he worked at Rockefeller University, where he served as co-director of the Electronics Laboratory, and he began publishing science fiction in the early 1960s.

He became especially known for funny, idea-driven stories about science gone sideways. Among his best-known works are The Best Laid Schemes, a collection featuring his recurring character Emmett Duckworth, and the much-anthologized story "What Happened to Auguste Clarot?" from Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions. Some of his darker stories explored contact between humans and alien minds, showing that his work could move beyond comedy when he wanted it to.

Later in life, he found a new audience through the comments section of The New York Times, where he posted more than 13,000 rhyming verses, many of them limericks. That unexpected second act made him a minor literary celebrity all over again. He died in Lincoln, Massachusetts, on December 25, 2018.