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H. Beam Piper was a fascinating character with a wry wit, and an irreverent view of science fiction, his own foibles and those of the human species. His foremost novels, "Little Fuzzy," "Cosmic Computer," "Space Viking," and "Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen" are science fiction classics. Piper’s humanity and informed intelligence grace every page of his writings. Beam was an original, even for his own time.

H. Beam Piper’s death over the weekend of November 6, 1964 is one of the true tragedies of science fiction. The tragic irony of Piper’s suicide was brought about by his mistaken belief that his career as a writer was over, only a few years before the SF boom of the 1960s and 1970s would catapult science fiction into the cultural mainstream.

The Memorial Fund was founded by Dennis Frank and John F. Carr to collect contributions from fans and readers to purchase a proper granite memorial headstone for Piper’s grave in Fairview Cemetery, Altoona, Pennsylvania and to pay tribute to the memory of H. Beam Piper.

This has now been achieved and the new H. Beam Piper Memorial Stone will be unveiled on November 7th, 2009 at Fairview Cemetery in Altoona, Pennsylvania in the early afternoon

John F. Carr