Thomas M Disch, who reportedly committed suicide on 4 July, 2008, was a poet, critic, philosopher and primarily an author of idiosyncratic speculative fiction novels that attracted a loyal and passionate following.

During the 1960s he was at the vanguard of science fiction's new wave, a movement which dealt in highbrow literary values but also revelled in experimentation and satire.

His stories were notably original and imaginative, featuring such scenarios as prisoners of war being injected with bacteria which made them super-intelligent but also killed them (Camp Concentration, 1968), or a device which lets people escape their bodies and fly free around the universe, provided they can simply sing a song from the heart (On Wings of Song, 1979).

He wrote a score of novels and novellas, plus several collections of poetry and numerous short stories. In addition he penned several pieces of critical nonfiction about poetry and sci-fi, one of which, The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of (1998), won a Hugo Award. His talents also stretched to reviewing theatre and opera for such esteemed publications as the New York Times, the Washington Post and The Nation.

Thomas Michael Disch was born on 2 February, 1940, in Des Moines, Iowa. Like many youngsters of his generation, he left his provincial home for the bright lights of Manhattan at 17. However, his ambitions of working with words were waylaid when he enlisted in the US Army the following year.

Mr Disch was clearly not suited to military life and his service ended with a three-month spell in a mental hospital. After discharge he worked in a theatre and then took writing classes at New York University. Instead of taking his midterm exams, he wrote a short story which he subsequently sold for a $100-dollar fee, beginning his career in literature.

His first novel, The Genocides, was published in 1965. Like his entire cannon, it was a book that spurned classification - its tale of the earth being commandeered by aliens as a giant greenhouse, thus exterminating the human race, had obvious Genesis connotations and showed that Disch was less interested in the actual science than he was the wider issues that could be explored by utilising it as a tool of the imagination.

He wrote for many of the leading sci-fi publications of his era, including New Worlds and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and several of his novels were first published as serialisations in these. This format suited him as many of his works - including the acclaimed dystopian near-future vision 334 - were told in fragments from different perspectives. There was also something of a covert epistolary nature in his writing style as he would tend to treat the reader as if they themselves were present in his worlds.

From the 1980s onwards, beginning with The Businessman (1984), he abandoned these made-up worlds in favour of the terrors set within the present day. Nevertheless, his books continued to demonstrate the key characteristics of a cynical attitude towards society and historical echoes that implied an inexorable doom.

Throughout his career he operated outside the scope of a normal imagination, managing to be continually original, innovative and bold - for his last novel, completed shortly before his death, he adopted the personality of the Almighty himself, The Word of God being literally a memoir by the eponymous deity.

Personally he was as quirky as his books, ranging erratically from the sceptical to the celebratory when discussing literature, music, the arts and his other passions in interviews. He had been publicly gay since the early days of his career, but he strived to ensure that his sexuality never became an issue in either his work or his public image.

During the last two years of his life he had been regularly updating a Live Journal blog with poetry, philosophical titbits and updates on the progress of The Word of God. As well as being witty and urbane, the blog also hinted at his depressive state following the recent death of his partner Charles Naylor and threats of eviction from his New York apartment.

In a 2001 interview he was asked if, when he joined the new wave, he was trying to be "different". "I didn't have to try," he said. "If I just followed my vision - that was different."