Knight's novella "The Earth Quarter" was the cover story of the January 1955 issue of IfKnight's novella "The Visitor at the Zoo" took the cover of the April 1963 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction
Knight was born in Baker City, Oregon, in 1922, and grew up in Hood River, Oregon. He entered science-fiction fandom at the age of eleven and published two issues of a fanzine titled Snide.[3]
Knight's first professional sale was a cartoon drawing to a science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories.[4] His first story, "The Itching Hour", appeared in the Summer 1940 number of Futuria Fantasia, edited and published by Ray Bradbury.[1] "Resilience" followed in the February 1941 number of Stirring Science Stories, edited by Donald A. Wollheim.[1] An editorial error made the latter story's ending incomprehensible;[5] it was reprinted in a 1978 magazine in four pages with a two-page introduction by Knight.[1]
At the time of his first story sale he was living in New York and was a member of the Futurians.[6] One of his short stories describes paranormal disruption of a science fiction fan group and contains cameo appearances of various Futurians and others under thinly-disguised names; for instance, non-Futurian SF writer H. Beam Piper is identified as "H. Dreyne Fifer".
Knight's forte was the short story; he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.[7] To the general public he is best known as the author of "To Serve Man", a 1950 short story adapted for The Twilight Zone.[2] It won a 50-year Retro-Hugo in 2001 as the best short story of 1950.[8] Knight was also a science fiction critic, a career which began when he wrote in 1945 that A. E. van Vogt "is not a giant as often maintained. He's only a pygmy who has learned to operate an overgrown typewriter."[3] He ceased reviewing when Fantasy & Science Fiction refused to publish his review of Judith Merril's novel The Tomorrow People.[9][10] These reviews were later collected in In Search of Wonder.[6]
Algis Budrys wrote that Knight and "William Atheling Jr." (James Blish) had "transformed the reviewer's trade in the field",[11] in Knight's case "without the guidance of his own prior example".[9] The term "idiot plot", a story that only functions because almost everyone in it is an idiot, became well known through Knight's frequent use of it in his reviews, though he believed the term was probably invented by Blish.[12] Knight's only non-Retro-Hugo Award was for "Best Reviewer" in 1956.[8]
Until his death, Knight lived in Eugene, Oregon, with his second wife, author Kate Wilhelm.[19] His papers are held in the University of Oregon Special Collections and University Archive.[20]
^Futurians Chester Cohen and Knight used the name Conanight jointly for two 1942 illustrations. Knight wrote three 1943–1944 short stories as Stuart Fleming.[1]
^Knight, Damon (2016). "Author's Notes; To the Second Edition". In Search of Wonder: Essays on Modern Science Fiction (3rd ed.). Golden, Colorado: ReAnimus Press. pp. 20, 260. ISBN9781539833697. I resigned as F&SF's book reviewer in 1960 because the then editor, now my agent and a good friend, declined to publish one of my reviews as written. (The review in question appears here for the first time, in Chapter 10 [The Tomorrow People].)
^"Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame". Mid American Science Fiction and Fantasy Conventions, Inc. Archived from the original on May 21, 2013. Retrieved 2013-03-22. This was the official website of the hall of fame to 2004
Aldiss, Brian W.; Harrison, Harry (1976). Hell's Cartographers. London: Futura. ISBN0-86007-907-4.
Gunn, James E.; Candelaria, Matthew (2005). Speculations on Speculation: Theories of Science Fiction. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. ISBN0-8108-4902-X.
Pohl, Frederik (2002). The SFWA Grand Masters. Vol. 3. New York: Macmillan. ISBN0-312-86876-6.
Stanyard, Stewart T. (2006). Dimensions Behind the Twilight Zone: A Backstage Tribute to Television's Groundbreaking Series. Chicago: ECW Press. ISBN978-1-55022-744-4.
