Justin Leiber (1938-2016)

SF writer and philosopher Justin Leiber, 77, died March 22, 2016 in Tallahassee FL. He had prostate cancer. The son of writer Fritz Leiber, Justin Leiber’s debut SF novel was Beyond Rejection (1980), beginning the Beyond sequence, which continued with Beyond Humanity (1987) and Beyond Gravity (1988). He also wrote fantasy novels The Sword and the Eye (1985) and The Sword and the Tower (1986).

Justin Fritz Leiber was born July 8, 1938 in Chicago IL. He earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Oxford and a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Chicago. He taught at various universities in New York and Texas beginning in the early ’60s, eventually becoming a professor of philosophy at Florida State University. He was also a visiting fellow at Oxford. Leiber’s academic interests included philosophy, linguistics, and cognitive science, and he often explored his ideas through a SFnal lens. Can Animals and Machines Be Persons? (1985) examines notions of personhood in a SF scenario. He published many works of non-fiction, including many papers on Alan Turing and the Turing Test. He is survived by wife Barbara R. Foorman, two children, and three grandchildren.