Background
Patten was born in Los Angeles, California on December 11, 1940 to Shirley Marie (Jones) Patten and Beverly Walter Patten. He has two younger sisters: Loel Anne Patten (born 1943) and Sherrill Clare Patten (born 1947). He learned to read at a young age, starting with comic strips in both the Los Angeles Times and Examiner, and later was introduced to Walt Disney's Comics and Stories around 1945. Much of his early reading also came from magazines and books, and he showed an interest in superhero comic books as well.
Science fiction became a key interest around age 9, and Patten began to collect books from Ace Books, Ballantine Books, and other publishers around that time, as well as major science fiction magazines including Astounding, F&SF, and Galaxy Science Fiction. In the late 1950s, he became involved in the science-fiction fandom. He entered the University of California at Los Angeles in 1958, and its graduate School of Library Science in 1962. He became active in fandom after discovering the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society in 1960. By the time he graduated with a Master's degree in Library Science in 1963, he had been writing for science fiction fanzines and publishing his own stories for three years. His Master's thesis was on the books of Andre Norton.
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