Kurt Vonnegut, perhaps the most influential and popular science fiction writer of the late twentieth century -- and the one who fought the hardest to deny that he ever wrote science fiction -- died Wednesday night in New York City. The New York Times has a full obituary. 

Vonnegut's career began with stories in the science fiction magazines in the early 1950s (though his very first sale was to the mainstream slick Collier's), and his first novel, the dystopia Player Piano, was nominated for the 1953 International Fantasy Award for Fiction. His later SF novels included The Sirens of Titan, Cat's Cradle, and Slaughterhouse-Five; his best-known and most characteristic works were deeply science fictional. His last novel was 1997's Timequake, in which an unspecified apocalypse has caused the entire world to re-live a decade for the second time.

He will be greatly missed, both by readers and by other SF writers dreaming of escaping the "ghetto."

[via Locus Online]

Update: Episode #16 of The Time Traveler Show podcast is a tribute to Vonnegut, including a reading of his story "2BRO2B" (orignally from the January 1962 issue of Worlds of If).

Update 2: Bloggasm has a number of tributes to Vonnegut.