William Sanders (April 28, 1942 – June 29, 2017) was an American speculative fiction writer, primarily noted for his alternate history short fiction, and was the senior editor of the online science fiction magazine Helix SF. He twice won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History and was a finalist for other honors including the Nebula Award.

Life

Sanders was born in 1942 in Arkansas, the son of Cordell and William N. Sanders.<!--- Please don't return Cherokee info before reading "Cherokee or white" on the talk page --> Sanders graduated from the University of Arkansas at Monticello. He served in the U.S. Army from 1963 to 1966 and was a Vietnam War veteran.

Writing

Sanders started his literary career in 1973 by writing books and magazine columns focused on sports and outdoor subjects. as well as novels marketed by the publisher as Action/Adventure, beginning with Hardball (Berkley Jove 1992). In an author's afterword to his short story "Ninekiller and the Neterw", included in the Roger Zelazny tribute collection "Lord of the Fantastic", Sanders credits Roger Zelazny for talking Sanders into returning to writing SF/F stories with American Indian themes.

Sanders, a former powwow dancer, is best known for his use of American Indian themes and his dry, often cynical sense of humor.

A stickler for detail and accuracy, Sanders studied history, which led to the publication in 2003 of Conquest: Hernando de Soto and the Indians, 1539-1543, a book begun some two decades earlier and researched by travelling extensively in the southeastern quarter of the US, by motorcycle and small boat and on foot, retracing de Soto's probable routes.

As a non-fiction writer, he wrote numerous books on bicycle racing, kayaking, and backpacking.

As Sundown Slim he wrote a humor column for "Competitive Cycling", a bike racing magazine in the mid-1970s. He also contributed to Bike World Magazine in the same period.

Helix SF magazine

From 2006 until the final issue in 2008, Sanders was the editor and publisher of the online quarterly magazine Helix SF.

According to The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Helix SF was "generally praised for the quality of its fiction and poetry."

In 2008, Sanders wrote a rejection letter in which he called Muslims "sheet heads", "worm brained" and "incapable of honesty." Sanders would later deny that he was referring to Muslims as a whole. However, the controversy ultimately resulted in several authors asking to pull their stories from the Helix archives after they found out Sanders had offered that option to N.K. Jemisin. (comic alternative history)

  • Pockets of Resistance. Warner Books, 1990. written under Will Sundown pseudonym