Radell Faraday Nelson (October 3, 1931 – November 30, 2022) was an American science fiction author and cartoonist most notable for his 1963 short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning",[1] which was later used by John Carpenter as the basis for his 1988 film They Live.

[11] Later Nelson wrote many professionally published short stories including "Turn Off the Sky" and "Nightfall on the Dead Sea".

In the early 1970s, Nelson ran a writers' workshop at the First Unitarian Church in the San Francisco Bay Area.

[16] Richard A. Lupoff called it "a revelation," saying "Nelson's style is sharply focused and carefully colored... His plotting is exactly as complex as it ought to be [and] his characters are nicely drawn.

[19] Nelson was added to the First Fandom Hall of Fame in 2019 for "his life-long genuine love of science fiction and his enthusiastic service to that community for decades.

"[20] Nelson professed that his greatest claim to fame was as the creator of the iconic propeller beanie as emblematic of science fiction fandom while a 10th-grader at Cadillac High School.