David A. Kyle was born on February 14, 1919 in upstate New York.  As a child, his principal source of reading was The Book of Knowledge, a collection of twenty volumes.  Dave enjoyed reading about the adventures of Tom Swift and the Hardy Boys and he was thrilled by the imaginative stories of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne.

He soon discovered a more popular form of fiction that came about in American Boy Magazine, in the sophisticated stories written by Carl H. Claudy and Thomson Burtis.  As a boy growing up in Monticello, NY, he had a playhouse that he converted to a little lending library.  He would rent out books for a nickel a week, using proceeds to buy another book to add to the collection.

His family lived a hundred miles from New York City, and occasionally he and his mother would take the train into the city.  In New York, they would go to the theater to see a show.  One of the shows that had the biggest impact on him was Dracula, with Bela Lugosi in the lead role.  As a teen-ager during the depression, Dave was interested in radio and airplanes, and these things indirectly led him in 1933 to discover the magazines of Hugo Gernsback.  The first one that he read was a second-hand copy of the first issue of Science Wonder Stories.

In 1934, Dave began enthusiastically writing letters to the magazines and corresponding with big name fans such as Forrest J Ackerman and Robert A. Madle.  That same year, Dave founded the Legion of Science Fiction Improvement.  In 1935, he took the Wonder Stories science fiction test and earned a Bachelor of Science Fiction.

In 1936, he published Fantasy World, the first fanzine to feature original comic strips and comics stories.  He saw the film based on H.G. Wells’ The Shape of Things to Come.  After graduating from Monticello High School, he moved to New York City and began making friendships with other fans.  He attended a meeting of the International Scientific Association and met Donald A. Wollheim, Frederik Pohl, Richard Wilson, John B. Michel, Robert W. Lowndes and Cyril Kornbluth. 

Dave was co-founder of Science Fiction League Chapter 5 in his hometown.  That same year he went to the offices of Wonder Stories and met Hugo Gernsback and Frank R. Paul.  He was a charter member of the Fantasy Amateur Press Association and founder of the Phantasy Legion and the Fantasy Guild.  In October 1936, Dave attended the very first science fiction convention, when a small group of fans took the train from New York City and met for a day with their fellow fans in Philadelphia.

In February 1937, he attended the Second Eastern Science Fiction Convention, held at Bohemian Hall in Astoria, Long Island.  Dave also witnessed the Hindenburg as it flew over the Flatiron Building in New York on its way to its destruction.  Later that year, he graduated from the Commercial Illustration Studios, Art Career School, New York. 

In 1938, Dave became a member of the Futurians.  He attended the National Science Fiction Convention in Newark (May, 1938) and went to the University of Alabama through Spring 1939.  He belonged to the Association for Democracy in Science Fiction Fandom.  Dave made numerous visits to the New York World’s Fair, and attended World Science Fiction Convention (July 2-4).

In 1940, Dave became managing editor of his family’s newspaper business.  He arranged for Dirk Wylie to join him there as a reporter.  The next year Dave published his first science fiction story, “Golden Nemesis” in Stirring Science Stories.  After the outbreak of World War Two, he joined the military, went to OCS and in 1942 was commissioned a second lieutenant.  In 1946, Captain Kyle was discharged and he returned to the family newspaper. 

In 1947, Kyle began selling his illustrations to magazines edited by Fred Pohl, and writing stories for magazines edited by Robert W. Lowndes.  He was co-founder, along with Marty Greenberg, of one of the early small press specialty book publishers, Gnome Press.  In the early days of Gnome Press, Dave was involved in every aspect of the business.  He created the dust jackets, wrote cover blurbs, and helped to edit manuscripts.  They produced some of the finest examples of limited-edition science fiction and fantasy books from that period.  He was a co-founder and chairman of the Hydra Club, New York.  At the 1949 Worldcon, Dave became the emcee of the first live television broadcast that discussed science fiction.

In 1950, Dave was co-chairman of the New York Science Fiction Conference, co-founder of Argonaut Books, and co-founder of the New York Science Fiction Circle.  He established the science fiction book line at Bouregy & Curl, Inc.  Kyle decided to go back to school, and in 1951, graduated from Columbia University with a Bachelor’s Degree in English and Writing.  Kyle founded the New York Science Fiction Council.  During this period, he formed a literary agency with Fred Pohl and Dirk Wylie, and he also began writing and selling his sports and detective stories to the pulp magazines.

In 1954, Kyle and Sam Moskowitz co-chaired Metrocon, New York City.  The following year, Dave was the founder and director of the World Science Fiction Society, Inc.  Along with Dick Wilson, he booked passage on the Isle de France and sailed to England.  In 1956, Dave was the chairman the 14th World Science Fiction Convention.  He arranged for Arthur C. Clarke to be guest of honor and Al Capp to speak at the banquet.  Kyle was a founding member and inaugural chairman of the Lunarians.

Dave said that if London won the bid for the 1957 Worldcon, he would charter a trans-Atlantic flight for fans to attend the convention.  After he and Ruth Evalin Landis were married, they (along with Dave’s parents and fifty science fiction fans) flew to London on KLM Airlines.  In 1959, Dave joined First Fandom, the Dinosaurs of Science Fiction.  Two years later, he became a member of the Noble and Illustrious Order of St. Fantony.

In 1966, Dave and his family visited Arthur C. Clarke in England on the movie set of 2001: A Space Odyssey.  In 1968, Kyle was a Nebula Award nominee in the short story category.  The following year, a dream came true for many of the long-time science fiction fans with Apollo 11.  Dave was in attendance at Cape Canaveral as a guest of NASA, and announced the rocket’s launch for his family’s radio station in New York.

Living in England during the 1970s, Dave was president of the H.G. Wells Society, co-founder of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Film Society, and member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and the Association of Science Fiction Artists.  In 1975, he was honorary managing director and vice-chair of the British Science Fiction Association. 

In 1976, he published A Pictorial History of Science Fiction (Hamlyn Books) and was Fan Guest of Honor at Novacon 6 in Birmingham.  In 1977, he published The Illustrated Book of Science Fiction Ideas and Dreams (Hamlyn Books).  The British Science Fiction Association presented him with a special award in recognition of these two books, and he received an Outstanding Achievement Award from the International Society of Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy.

Dave was a long-time fan of the works of E.E. “Doc” Smith, and a friend of the Smith family.  In the late-1970s he was invited by Bantam Books (Fred Pohl, editor) to continue the Lensman series.  In 1980, Kyle published The Dragon Lensman.  In 1982, he brought out Lensman from Rigel.  In 1983 the series concluded with Z-Lensman.  That same year, Dave was Fan Guest of Honor at the Worldcon in Baltimore, MD.

In 1985, Dave was named “One of the 100 Most Important People in Science Fiction/Fantasy” by Starlog.  In 1988, he was inducted by his peers into the First Fandom Hall of Fame.  In 1989, Kyle was Fan Guest of Honor at Lunacon. 

In 1991, Dave was named a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society, and was Fan Guest of Honor at Kanto-Con in Tokyo, Japan.  Three years later, he was Fan Guest of Honor at Arisia 5, in Boston.  In 1995 he founded and was chairman pro-tem of the Hugo Gernsback Society.  He attended First Fandom reunions in 1994, 1995 and 1998.  In 1999, Dave received I-Con’s Sam Moskowitz Fan Award.

Dave remained active during the first part of the new century.  In 2001, he was the First Fandom Guest of Honor at Balticon 35.  In 2004, Forry Ackerman asked Dave to become administrator of the E.E. Evans Memorial Big Heart Award, which is presented each year at the worldcon.  That same year Dave was Guest of Honor at Odyssey, Fred Clarke’s convention, in Taunton, Somerset, England and Fan Guest of Honor at Albacon, in Schenectady, NY. 

In 2005, Dave was officially recognized as the record-holder for attending the most World SF Conventions since they were first held in 1939.  In 2009, I-Con celebrated Dave’s 90th birthday with a huge party.

For a number of years, Dave and Ruth had made trips from New York during the winter months to spend time with Ruth’s sister in Florida.  Ruth Kyle passed away on January 5, 2011, and Dave eventually moved from his long-time residence at Skylee in Potsdam to live with his daughter Kerry and her son Kyle in Mohegan Lake.  Dave continued to attend conventions and serve as the administrator of the Big Heart Award until his death on September 18, 2016 at the age of 97 years.

Dave was an award-winning artist, author, editor, publisher, printer, anthologist, collector, literary agent, correspondent, conventioneer, chairman, historian, researcher, essayist, reviewer, panelist, lecturer, photographer, journalist, consultant, archivist, cartographer, an officer and a gentleman, world-traveler, honored guest, “Man in the Red Jacket” and a long-time member of First Fandom. 

David Ackerman Kyle was a genuine fan and will be long-remembered.  Over the course of nine long decades, he was usually in the right places at the right times to fully experience and profoundly influence the history of modern science fiction.