Author of The Swarm Dies
Posted by: Loren Coleman on June 10th, 2010
Arthur Herzog III, 83, the well-known scifi and true crime author who wrote the famed science thriller The Swarm, about killer bees from, died on May 26, 2010. His death, in Southampton, N.Y., was caused by complications of a stroke, his wife, Leslie Mandel-Herzog, said. He had homes in Manhattan and Wainscott, on Long Island, New York.
The Swarm published in 1974, was about African killer bees that migrate to South America and then find their way into the United States. The swarm devastates rural communities and eventually blackens the Manhattan skyline. The book was made into the 1978 movie of the same name, in which Michael Caine played the scientist leading the war against the bees.
Another significant book of interest to readers of Cryptomundo was Orca, also made into a movie, in which as a male killer whale takes revenge on a fisherman who killed his offspring.
Herzog’s science fiction novel IQ 83 is being made into a film by Dreamworks. “IQ 83” (1978) is a thriller in which a genetics research team accidentally creates a virus that unleashes an epidemic of retardation.
Herzog wrote 16 novels, two collections of short stories and nine nonfiction books, including:
The Church Trap. New York, Macmillan, 1968/2003.
The Swarm. 1974.
Orca. Pocket Publishers, 1977.
Heat. Signet, 1977.
IQ 83. Simon & Schuster, 1978.
Make Us Happy. Crowell, 1978.
Glad to be Here. Crowell, 1979.
Aries Rising: A Novel. Richard Marek Publishers, 1980.
The Craving. Dell Publishing, 1982.
Vesco. Doubleday, 1987.
The Woodchipper Murder. Henry Holt & Company, 1989.
17 Days: The Katie Beers Story. 2003.
The B.S. Factor. 2003
A Murder in Our Town. 2007.
The film The Swarm, 1978, starred Michael Caine, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, Katharine Ross, andRichard Widmark, and was directed by Irwin Allen.
Herzog was born in Manhattan on April 6, 1927, the son of Arthur Herzog Jr. and the former Bunny Dayton. His father, a songwriter, often worked with Billie Holiday, and together they wrote “God Bless the Child.”
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
