Lawrence science fiction writer and Kansas University professor emeritus James Gunn is pictured with a miniature version of a translucent award featuring his own likeness that will be on display at the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle. Gunn, who is the author of 42 published science fiction novels and is working on his 43rd, was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame this summer.

In 1996 James Gunn co-founded the Science Fiction Hall of Fame and, for several years, inducted others into it at the hall’s home base, Kansas University.

The hall of fame moved in 2004 to a bigger national stage — the national science fiction museum, EMP in Seattle — and this summer Gunn himself was inducted.

“It was a rather unusual and very surprising turn of events, but one which was very pleasing and satisfying,” Gunn said.

Gunn, 92, of Lawrence, is professor emeritus of English at KU and namesake of the university’s Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction.

The museum, in Gunn’s hall of fame listing, calls him a “triple threat” in the field — author, scholar and teacher.

Lawrence science fiction writer and Kansas University professor emeritus James Gunn is pictured with a miniature version of a translucent award featuring his own likeness that will be on display at the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle. Gunn, who is the author of 42 published science fiction novels and is working on his 43rd, was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame this summer.

“As an author, James Gunn writes insightful science fiction that examines how humanity will tackle the problems the future may bring,” according to EMP. “As a scholar, he devoted his career to promoting and advancing the study of science fiction.”

Gunn began writing science fiction in 1948 while in graduate school, after serving in the Navy during World War II, according to his hall of fame bio. He has published more than 100 short stories, 10 novels, and numerous works of criticism.

Gunn’s fellow 2015 inductees include none other than late author Kurt Vonnegut, who Gunn said he was “particularly pleased” to be inducted alongside. Gunn said he had an opportunity to get acquainted with the famous writer on two occasions he came to speak at KU.

Hall of Fame nominations are submitted by EMP members, and final inductees are chosen by a panel of science fiction and fantasy authors, artists, editors, publishers and film professionals, according to EMP.

This year’s three other inductees are filmmaker Georges Méliès and artists John Schoenherr and Jack Gaughan.

Gunn has received a number of other big honors in the field, probably most notably being named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America in 2007.

“It seems as if my cup has been overflowing,” Gunn said.

All the while, Gunn, who retired from KU in 1993, has kept writing.

He’s midway through a trilogy now.

“Transcendental” was published in 2013 by Tor Books. “Transgalactic” is complete and scheduled to publish in March 2016. Writing on “Transformation,” the third book, is underway, Gunn said.

For years, Gunn said much of his writing was more based on current events and took place closer to the present. Gunn described the new trilogy as a return to the space epic, the style of novels he penned in the 1950s.

The “Transcendental” trilogy combines all the influences from his life and writing — and most of the first book takes place on a spaceship carrying humans and aliens through a galaxy dominated by a federation of aliens. The ship’s riders set out to find a transcendent machine, he said, “and a few of them make it through.”

Without spoiling the ending or the yet-to-publish volumes, Gunn said the next books involve characters attempting to find their way back together after being separated in the galaxy and then facing an alien invasion.

In remarks he prepared for the hall of fame induction, Gunn reflects on the changes in science fiction since he “sat in a garret” writing his first story in 1948.

“The world has changed, too, often in positive ways, sometimes in ways that threaten its survival,” he said. “It’s the job of science fiction, it’s our job, to observe those changes and consider their implications for human lives and maybe even do something to make those lives better, more livable, more human — whatever ‘human’ turns out to be. Let’s save the world through science fiction.”