Timothy Robert Sullivan (June 9, 1948 – November 10, 2024) was an American science fiction novelist, screenwriter, actor, film director and short story writer.
Many of his stories have been critically acknowledged and reprinted. His 1981 short story "Zeke," a tragedy about an extraterrestrial stranded on Earth, has been translated into German and was a finalist for the 1982 Nebula Award for Best Short Story. "Under Glass" (2011), a well-reviewed semi-autobiographical short story with occult hints, has been translated into Chinese and is the basis for a screenplay by director/actor Ron Ford. "Yeshua's Dog" (2013) was also translated into Chinese.
Early life Tim Sullivan was born in Bangor, Maine, on June 9, 1948, the son of Charles Edward Sullivan, a United States Postal Service worker (born February 2, 1923), and Lillian Hope Fitzgerald Sullivan (b. March 31, 1924), a stay-at-home mother who raised their children, Charles Edward Sullivan Jr., and Timothy, the younger son. Sullivan later wrote short stories about his father, including "Hawk on a Flagpole" (2000) and "The Memory Cage" (2014).
Tim and Charlie developed a love of genre fiction from their father, who brought home for them books and comics ranging from Edgar Rice Burroughs to Vladimir Nabokov to Mad magazine. Tim shared these with his neighbors, who included Richard Tozier (who has become a jazz radio personality at Maine Public Broadcasting Network, and who is featured in three Stephen King novels, It, Dreamcatcher and 11/22/63). These show the strong ties among friendships born in Bangor, and Sullivan and Tozier retained a lifelong friendship. The Sullivan brothers attended John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor, as did Tozier. Charlie (1946–1967), a corporal in the United States Marine Corps, died in battle in the Vietnam War.
When Sullivan's father died in 1968, Sullivan and his mother moved to Lake Worth, Florida. Tim Sullivan briefly attended Miami Dade Community College. Later, while studying English literature at Florida Atlantic University, he made a lifelong friendship with Professor Robert A. Collins. Sullivan earned a bachelor's degree while at FAU. Sullivan helped Dr. Collins create what has become the prestigious International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA; originally called Swanncon in honor of fantasy author and former FAU professor Thomas Burnett Swann). Sullivan began but did not complete postgraduate education.
Sullivan lived in Florida from 1968 to 1983, then in Philadelphia, and in the Washington, D.C. area. He moved to southern California in 1988, where he lived for the next twelve years.
Career Sullivan has written several novels and many more short stories. He has scripted, directed, and starred in microbudget films in the genres of science fiction and horror, often with his friend Ron Ford. Among his day jobs, Sullivan has worked in construction, in a bookstore, in a library, in a liquor store and other retail sites, as a night guard, as a taxicab driver, and with helping and teaching the mentally challenged.
Writing Sullivan edited a horror anthology for Avon Books, Tropical Chills, in 1988. Sullivan also published his first novel, Destiny's End, in 1988. This science fiction novel was followed by The Parasite War in 1989, The Martian Viking in 1991, and Lords of Creation in 1992, and another horror anthology, Cold Shocks (Avon, 1991), among other books.
He befriended Michael Dirda, a chief book reviewer for The Washington Post and, as a result of that friendship, in the 1980s and 1990s Sullivan wrote commissioned reviews of dozens of books for The Washington Post, the Washington Post Book World, and USA Today. Among the fiction and nonfiction he reviewed are included: Kathleen Ann Goonan's The Bones of Time; a review of a novel by Walter Jon Williams, Metropolitan, which Sullivan characterized as highly readable "due largely to pungent characterization and persuasive dialogue"; and Allen Steele's novel The Tranquillity Alternative (1995), which he praised in the same issue of Book World.
He used different versions of his name while publishing fiction: Timothy Robert Sullivan, Timothy R. Sullivan, and Tim Sullivan.
Acting Sullivan began his career in film in a collaboration with S. P. Somtow, entitled The Laughing Dead (1989); Sullivan plays a priest losing his faith, Father O'Sullivan, who becomes possessed by a Mayan god of death. Throughout the 1990s, he scripted, directed and acted in several low-budget science fiction and horror films, most notably Twilight of the Dogs (1995) and Hollywood Mortuary (1998), both of which have become cult favorites.
John Clute writes that Sullivan "concentrated for almost a decade on an acting career, though he began to publish short stories again in 2000."
Personal life and death
After graduating from college, Sullivan lived for many years in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, Southern California. He never married and had no children. In 2000, Sullivan moved to South Florida to care for his ailing mother who died in 2004. In 2003, he moved to South Miami, Florida to share a house with Fiona Kelleghan. He left Florida in 2019 and settled in Newport News, Virginia.
Sullivan was an atheist. He was a constant reader; his bookshelf was filled with science fiction favorites, but also with the works of science popularizers, biographies, and histories. He maintained a Facebook page.
Sullivan died from congestive heart failure at a hospice in Newport News, on November 10, 2024, at the age of 76.
Literary friendships Sullivan was roommates with fantasy authors S. P. Somtow in Alexandria, Virginia and Gregory Frost in Philadelphia. He became friends with several Clarion Workshop graduates, such as Kim Stanley Robinson. He was long-time friends with Gardner Dozois, Jack Dann, Pat Cadigan, John Kessel, James Patrick Kelly, John Grant, and Michael Swanwick.
He was part of a group of writers named the "Savage Humanists" by anthologist Fiona Kelleghan.
Sullivan has been tuckerized in the novels of many science fiction writers, including Sharon Webb.
Bibliography
Novels Title Year ISBN of first edition Main character NotesThe Florida Project 1985 Number 5 of the V novels. In this novel, Sullivan tuckerized a number of his friends in the Washington Science Fiction Association (using their names as characters).The New England Resistance 1985 Number 9 of the V novels. To Conquer the Throne 1987 Number 13 of the V novels.Destiny's End 1988 Deles An exile on the distant planet of Sripha must discover the secrets of his family and his past. A science fiction novel based on Greek mythology. On the first page of the novel, Sullivan tuckerized his friend Gardner Dozois in the phrase "the garden world of Doazwah." The Parasite War 1989 Alex Ward A story of alien invasion.The Dinosaur Trackers 1991 Co-written by Sullivan, Arthur Byron Cover, John Gregory Betancourt; cover art by Kevin Johnson. Number 4 in the series Robert Silverberg's Time Tours.The Martian Viking 1991 Johnsmith Biberkopf An adventure novel about Mars, Vikings, dreams, and hallucinations. Lords of Creation 1992 David Albee A paleontologist faces struggles with dinosaurs, extraterrestrial aliens, and a televangelist.
Short fiction
Anthologies edited Tropical Chills (1988) () 1. "Introduction" by Tim Sullivan 2. "Houston, 1943" by Gene Wolfe 3. "Mama Doah's Garden" by Susan Lilas Wiggs 4. "Grim Monkeys" by Steve Rasnic Tem 5. "The Flowers of the Forest" by Brian Aldiss 6. "White Socks" by Ian Watson 7. "Chrysalis" by Edward Bryant 8. "Night Fishing on the Caribbean Littoral of the Mutant Rain Forest" by Bruce Boston and Robert Frazier 9. "Dead Meat" by Charles Sheffield 10. "Where Do You Live, Queen Esther?" by Avram Davidson 11. "Talking Heads" by George Alec Effinger 12. "Getting Up" by Barry N. Malzberg and Jack Dann 13. "It Was the Heat" by Pat Cadigan 14. "A Part of Us" by Gregory Frost 15. "Zeke" by Timothy Robert Sullivan 16. "Graveyard Highway" by Dean Koontz
The Locus Index to Science Fiction: 1984–1998 described Tropical Chills as "Highly recommended."
It was republished in German as Heisse Angst (Droemer Knaur, 1990), translated by Marcel Bieger. ()
Cold Shocks (1991) () 1. "Introduction" by Tim Sullivan 2. "The Ice Children" by Gary Brandner 3. "First Kill" by Chet Williamson 4. "Colder Than by Hell" by Edward Bryant 5. "The Kikituk" by Michael Armstrong 6. "The Christmas Escape" by Dean Wesley Smith 7. "A Winter Memory" by Michael D. Toman 8. "The Sixth Man" by Graham Masterton 9. "The Ice Downstream" by Melanie Tem 10. "Morning Light" by Barry N. Malzberg 11. "Bring Me the Head of Timothy Leary" by Nancy Holder 12. "The Bus" by Gregory Frost 13. "Adleparmeun" by Steve Rasnic Tem 14. " Close to the Earth" by Gregory Nicoll 15. "Snowbanks" by Tim Sullivan 16. "St. Jackaclaws" by A. R. Morlan 17. "The Pavilion of Frozen Women" by S. P. Somtow
John Clute wrote that these two anthologies, "composed of carefully selected original and reprinted material, mostly horror, demonstrate Sullivan's editorial acuteness."
StoriesShort stories unless otherwise noted. TitleYearFirst publishedReprinted/collectedNotesAnomaly Station2014 Novella
"Doin' that Tachyon Rag" [a.k.a. "Tachyon Rag"] (Spring, 1977) – As by Timothy Robert Sullivan; first appeared in Unearth. "Downward to Darkness (Part 1 of 2)" (Fall/October, 1977) – As by Timothy Robert Sullivan; first appeared in Unearth; cover art by Tom Barber. "Downward to Darkness (Part 2 of 2)" (Winter/January, 1978) As by Timothy Robert Sullivan; first appeared in Unearth; cover art by Clyde Caldwell. "The Rauncher Goes to Tinker Town" (1979) - As by Timothy Robert Sullivan; first appeared in New Dimensions Science Fiction Number 9, edited by Robert Silverberg; . "My Father's Head" (1979) – As by Timothy R. Sullivan. Published in Chrysalis 5, ed. Roy Torgeson, Zebra Books, . "Zeke" (October, 1981) – First appeared in Rod Serling's Twilight Zone Magazine, ed. T. E. D. Klein. - Nominated for the 1982 Nebula Award for Best Short Story. - Translated as "Zeke" (in German) in Kopernikus 8 (November 1982). - Reprinted in Nebula Award Stories Seventeen (1983), ed. Joe Haldeman, . - Reprinted in Nebula Award Stories 17 (1985), ed. Joe Haldeman, . - Reprinted in The Savage Humanists (2008), ed. Fiona Kelleghan, . - Reprinted in The Eighth Science Fiction Megapack: 25 Modern and Classic Stories, Wildside Press (2013) "The Army of the Woods" (February, 1982) - Fantasy Newsletter #45, ed. Robert A. Collins (Florida Atlantic University). "The Comedian" (June 1982) - First appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. - Reprinted in: The 1983 Annual World's Best SF, ed. Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha, DAW Books (DAW Collectors #528), . - Reprinted in Time Travelers: From Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (1989), ed. Gardner Dozois, . - Nominated for the 1983 Locus Poll Award - Best Short Story. "A Major Game of Hoople" (1984) - Ares #17. A sports story, its title is a pun on Major Hoople. "JuJu, Incorporated" (May, 1984) - As by Timothy Robert Sullivan; Fantasy Review, ed. Robert A. Collins and Neil Barron (Florida Atlantic University). "Special Education" (January, 1986) - Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. "Stop-Motion" (August, 1986) - Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. - Placed #5 in the 1987 Asimov's Readers' Poll. "Dinosaur on a Bicycle" (March, 1987) - Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. - Reprinted in: Dinosaurs! (June, 1990), ed. Jack Dann, Gardner Dozois, . "Knucklebones" (1988) - Ripper!, ed. Gardner Dozois, Susan Casper, Tor Books, . - Reprinted in: Jack the Ripper (1988), ed. Dozois and Casper, . "Father to the Man" (October, 1988) - Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. "Midnight Glider" (Autumn, 1990) - Iniquities. "Nox Sanguinis" (Spring, 1991) - Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine Issue 11, ed. Kristine Kathryn Rusch.