Dickson was born in
Edmonton,
Alberta, in 1923. After the death of his father, he moved with his mother to
Minneapolis in 1937. He served in the United States Army, from 1943 to 1946, and received a Bachelor of Arts from the
University of Minnesota, in 1948. From 1948 through 1950 he attended the University of Minnesota for graduate work. His first published
speculative fiction was the short story "Trespass!", written jointly with
Poul Anderson, in the Spring 1950 issue of
Fantastic Stories Quarterly (ed.
Sam Merwin), the inaugural number of
Fantastic Story Magazine as it came to be titled. Next year three of his solo efforts were published by
John W. Campbell in
Astounding Science Fiction and one appeared in
Planet Stories. Anderson and Dickson also inaugurated the Hoka series with "The Sheriff of Canyon Gulch" (
Other Worlds Science Stories, May 1951). Dickson's series of novels include the
Childe Cycle (sometimes called the Dorsai series) and the
Dragon Knight. He won three
Hugo Awards and one
Nebula Award. For a great part of his life, he suffered from the effects of
asthma. He died of complications from severe asthma. == Personality ==