George Clayton Johnson was born on July 10, 1929 in Cheyenne, Wyoming, U.S. He is perhaps most famous for co-writing the novel Logan’s Run together with William F. Nolan.
Aside from Logan’s Run, Clayton Johnson was a prodigious writer of novels, comic strips, and screenplays. He wrote scripts for the television series scripts for The Twilight Zone and had the distinction of being the author of the first episode of Star Trek (called The Man Trap.) Outside of science fiction, Clayton Johnson wrote the novel upon which the Ocean’s Eleven movies were based (the films were released in 1960 and 2001.)
However, it is with Logan’s Run that George Clayton Johnson will be most widely associated with. The novel was published in 1967. The book concerns a dystopic ageist future society. In this world, the population and the consumption of resources are kept in balance through the requirement that people who reach a certain age are killed. If they resists, they “run” and authorities use “runners” top hunt them down. Logan is a runner (or ‘Sandman’), until h reaches the age where he himself is selected for elimination and he goes on the run himself. The novel was adapted in 1976 as a film, starring Michael York and Jenny Agutter. A one-season television series was produced in 1977 and there are rumors that a remake of the movie is likely.
At the time of his death, was working on a new book titled Jessica’s Run: A New Sequel for the Logan’s Run Universe.
Clayton Johnson was liberal in his ideals, expressed through his writing and activities. He was a co-owner of the controversial 1960s counter-culture outpost Café Frankenstein, located in Laguna Beach, California. As well as drugs, the establishment had a bookstore specializing in the sale of banned books.
George Clayton Johnson died from cancer on December 25, 2015. His son, Paul Johnson told The Associated Press: “Please emphasise how much he loved his fans, and judging by the overwhelming response I’ve received, from hundreds of people, known and unknown, he made quite an impact on them.”
Clayton Johnson’s co-writer William Nolan is still going strong at the age of 87. A new book by Nolan, in the Logan canon, called Logan Falls, is expected in 2016.
