Science fiction author. Died aged 72
Cherry Grimm published more than 50 science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories.
Under the pseudonym Cherry Wilder, the Wellington writer was well-known in the United States, Australia and Europe but virtually unknown in her own country.
She began writing in the genre in 1974 but most of her books were published in the US and rarely stocked in New Zealand.
One reason for Grimm's near-invisibility was that she spent most of her adult life abroad, mainly in Australia and Germany. The internet has expanded her audience.
Grimm's novels ranged from a series on relations between humans and marsupial-like aliens to science fiction set in the 19th and early 20th century, part of a subgenre dubbed Steampunk. British critics praised her complex short stories, narrative skill and - rare in science fiction - rounded characterisation. They questioned why she did not have a higher profile.
Born Cherry Lockett, she attended 12 schools around the North Island. Her parents were relieving teachers. She began to make up stories when she was 6, which were "rather derivative ... about trees, fairies, talking toys, animals", she said. By the age of 8 she was contributing puzzles and other work to the children's pages of newspapers.
In 1941 she came second in a New Zealand Herald's children's page competition with a story about how Santa got his sleigh. Grimm. She and her mother were then living in the Bay of Islands. Her father had been killed in Crete that year.
Grimm's first attempts at a highbrow publication failed miserably. She submitted poems to Landfall, edited then by Charles Brasch, only to have the pieces returned "with one of the cruellest and nastiest comments I have ever received from an editor".
"I reacted in the only possible way one can or should ... I thought 'stuff you, Charles' and submitted the poems to another magazine in Wellington," Grimm said. The poems were published and she was asked to write more for a New Zealand poetry yearbook.
Grimm moved to Australia in 1954, with her first husband, Alexander Anderson. she had two daughters - Catherine in 1963 and Louisa in 1965 - with second husband Horst Grimm. She joked that her first husband was an Anderson and the second a Grimm, therefore her third would have to be called Lafontaine or Aesop.
Her first published sci-fi piece, The Ark of James Carlyle, was followed by The Luck of Brin's Five, which began the Torin series, and the fantasy series The Rulers of Hylor.
After living in Germany for more than 20 years she returned to New Zealand in 1997.
Grimm was disappointed her work was not acknowledged and recognised in New Zealand. She was convinced local publishers were not interested because of in-built snobbishness against sci-fi.
- NZPA
<i>Obituary:</i> Cherry Grimm
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