Mark Sheeky Artworks

About this painting

On the weekend of November 6th, 1964, H. Beam Piper shut off the utilities in his apartment at 330 East Third Street in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, placed painter's drop cloths over the walls and floor and shot himself with a .38-caliber pistol. Marvin N. Katz, a reporter for Grit Publishing, wrote in the Analog Science Fiction letter column that there was a suicide note, but it did not give any reasons for the fatal decision. In a typically Piperesque comment, he did state: "I don't like to leave messes when I go away, but if I could have cleaned up any of this mess, I wouldn't be going away. H. Beam Piper."

So writes the memorial website to H. Beam Piper, science fiction author from the 1940s and 50s, often writing in the alternative history sub-genre. A collector of antique weapons, Beam Piper shot himself in November 1964 due to financial difficulties, or perhaps to spite his ex-wife, his life insurance policy being voided in cases of suicide. In a strange turn of events, one of his stories 'Murder In The Gunroom' depicts a suicide in an antique gun room which turned out to be murder.

I discovered H Beam Piper via the artist and illustrator Michael Whelan, who has painted some covers for Piper's re-issued books. The painting here shows a worried Piper, flapping money flying towards the vortex of the black hole in the lower right. His head is balanced on top of the pyramid of the eye of providence, from the US dollar bill. He too, teetering on the balance. In his head, two figures are slowly excavating a tunnel. Meanwhile a bullet hole allows a red river to flow, but here a river of writing, text from one of his novels. His thoughts ever-running with his writing.