Her name was Judy-Lynn del Rey. And she became the most powerful editor in science fiction history.
Born in 1943 with achondroplastic dwarfism, Judy-Lynn grew up devouring science fiction in New York City's public libraries. At a time when the genre was dismissed as pulp fiction for teenage boys, she saw something else entirely: the future of storytelling.
She started at the bottom—an office assistant at Galaxy, the most prestigious science fiction magazine of the 1960s. Within four years, she was managing editor.
Then Ballantine Books came calling.
When she arrived at Ballantine in 1973, science fiction and fantasy were afterthoughts in publishing. Fantasy in particular was considered unsellable—unless you were Tolkien. Judy-Lynn thought that was nonsense.
Her first major move was audacious: she cut ties with one of Ballantine's bestselling authors, John Norman, whose "Gor" novels were popular but notoriously misogynistic. It was a risk. She didn't care.
Then came the gamble that changed everything.
In 1976, someone brought her an opportunity: the novelization rights to an upcoming space movie by a young director named George Lucas. Hollywood thought the film would bomb. Studio executives were skeptical. Most publishers passed.
The Star Wars novelization sold 4.5 million copies before the movie even premiered.
She would later call herself the "Mama of Star Wars."
In 1977, she launched Del Rey Books—her own imprint, with her husband Lester editing fantasy while she oversaw everything else. Their first original novel was Terry Brooks's The Sword of Shannara. It became a phenomenon.
Remember The Princess Bride? The original 1973 novel had flopped. It was headed for obscurity. Judy-Lynn rescued it, reissuing it in 1977 with a striking gate-fold cover and an aggressive marketing campaign. Without her intervention, there might never have been a movie.
She published the Star Trek Log series. She championed Stephen R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenant trilogy—convincing Ballantine to release all three books on the same day from a completely unknown author. Unprecedented.
She published Anne McCaffrey's The White Dragon—the first science fiction novel ever to hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.
And she did all of this while competitors called her imprint "Death-Rey Books"—because she was utterly dominant.
Between 1977 and 1990, Del Rey Books had 65 titles reach bestseller lists. That was more than every other science fiction and fantasy publisher combined.
Arthur C. Clarke called her "the most brilliant editor I ever encountered."
Philip K. Dick went further: "The greatest editor since Maxwell Perkins"—the legendary editor of Hemingway and Fitzgerald.
But here's what burns: the science fiction community never nominated her for a Hugo Award while she was alive. Not once. The men who ran the industry praised her in private and overlooked her in public.
In October 1985, Judy-Lynn suffered a brain hemorrhage. She died four months later, at 42.
Only then did the Hugo committee vote to give her the Best Professional Editor award.
Her husband Lester refused to accept it.
He said Judy-Lynn would have objected—that it was given only because she had just died. That it came too late.
Judy-Lynn del Rey transformed science fiction from a niche hobby into a cultural force. She made fantasy into a mainstream publishing category. She bet on Star Wars when no one else would. She saved The Princess Bride from oblivion. She published the first #1 New York Times science fiction bestseller.
She did all of this standing 4'1" tall in an industry run by men who underestimated her at every turn.
The next time you pick up a fantasy novel, or watch a Star Wars movie, or quote The Princess Bride—
Now you know who made it possible.
