Rick Raphael

Rick Raphael was an American journalist and science fiction writer, born in New York City on February 20, 1919, and remembered for a compact but well-regarded body of work. Reference sources consistently describe him as both a newspaperman and an SF author, and note that his fiction appeared only intermittently because he had a busy career outside the genre.

He began publishing science fiction with "A Filbert is a Nut" in Astounding in 1959. Although he wrote only about ten stories, he earned strong notice for practical, character-driven tales about people doing skilled jobs in complex technological systems. Much of that reputation rests on Code Three and the collection The Thirst Quenchers.

Raphael died on January 4, 1994, in Minnesota. His work has continued to attract attention after his death, and later reference sources note that he received the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, a sign that readers and critics still see his fiction as worth finding again.