Jack Dann is notable as both a writer and an anthologist. His writing career began in 1970 with “Dark, Dark, the Dead Star” and “Traps” (Worlds of If, both with George Zebrowski). His 1973 novella “Junction” was a Nebula Award nominee. His early fiction is collected in Timetipping (1980). His first novel was Starhiker (1977), about a young bard’s attempt to escape from alien-occupied Earth. The Man Who Melted (1984) follows a man’s journey through an insane world in quest of his lost wife. He has been nominated for one Hugo and 11 Nebula Awards, winning the 1996 Best Novella Nebula with “Da Vinci Rising”, which formed part of The Memory Cathedral: A Secret History of Leonardo da Vinci (1995). He has established a reputation as a first-class anthologist with such collections as Wandering Stars (1974; science fiction about Jews and Judaism) and its sequel More Wandering Stars (1981), Future Power (1976, with Gardner Dozois), Faster Than Light (1976, with George Zebrowski), Immortals: Short Novels of the Transhuman Future (1980), In the Field of Fire (1987, with Jeanne Van Buren Dann; stories related to the Vietnam War), Dreaming Down-Under (2000, with Janeen S. Webb; World Fantasy Award winner) and Future Crimes (2003, with Gardner Dozois). Forthcoming is Gathering the Bones: Original Stories from the World’s Masters of Horror. His most recent novels are Counting Coup (2001 (written five years earlier but delayed by the original publisher’s bankruptcy)), a Kerouac-like road novel with elements of magic realism, and The Rebel: An Imagined Life of James Dean (2004), an alternate history tale in which Dean recovers from his fatal car crash. The Fiction Factory (2005) is a collection of stories co-authored by Dann with Gardner Dozois, Michael Swanwick and others. [Updated, 3/11/06]

Ellen Datlow became fiction editor of Omni in 1981 and continued in that role through the magazine’s transition to on-line publishing in 1995 until its demise in 1998. She then edited the webzines Event Horizon (1998–1999) and Sci Fiction (1999–2005). As an editor, she has shown a strong interest in nurturing the careers of up-and-coming authors. She was among the first editors to publish William Gibson, Pat Cadigan, Dan Simmons, Ted Chiang and other notable figures. In 1988, she originated (with Terri Windling) the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror anthology series and has co-edited it since then. Three of the volumes have won World Fantasy Awards. Her other anthology credits include Blood Is Not Enough: 17 Stories of Vampirism (1989), Alien Sex (1990), Little Deaths (1994; winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology) and a series (with Terri Windling) presenting fairy tales retold by modern writers, often quite shockingly: Snow White, Blood Red (1993) was the leadoff volume; Silver Birch, Blood Moon (1999) was a World Fantasy Award winner. She has been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor twelve times, winning in 2002 and 2005. [Updated, 3/11/06]

Peter David has written more than 60 novels, mostly movie or TV tie-ins, including The Return of Swamp Thing (1989), The Rocketeer (1991), Alien Nation: Body and Soul (1993), and several Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation novels. His original work includes Knight Life (1987; King Arthur must cope with modern New York), its sequel One Knight Only (2003), Howling Mad: A Tale of Relenting Horror (1989), and the anti-heroic adventures of Sir Apropos of Nothing (2001), which continued in The Woad to Wuin (2003) and Tong Lashing (2003).

Catherine Crook deCamp (1907–2000) was the wife and frequent collaborator of L. Sprague deCamp. Aside from much uncredited research and editorial assistance, she co-authored two Krishna novels (The Bones of Zora (1983), The Swords of Zinjaban (1991)), The Science Fiction Handbook (1953; one of the earliest books of advice for would-be SF writers and a Retro-Hugo nominee for Best Related Book this year), Spirits, Stars and Spells (1966; a history of magic) and Dark Valley Destiny: The Life of Robert E. Howard (1983).

L. Sprague deCamp (1907–2000) had one of the longest and most productive careers in the history of science fiction, starting with “The Isolinguals” (1937) in the pre-Campbell Astounding and continuing for over 60 years. During the “Golden Age of Science Fiction”, he produced such classic works as Lest Darkness Fall (1939), “Divide and Rule” (1939), “The Wheels of If” (1940), Genus Homo (1941, with P. Schuyler Miller) and Solomon’s Stone (1942). His most famous early work was the Incomplete Enchanter series (“The Incomplete Enchanter” (1940), “The Castle of Iron” (1941), etc.), which he wrote with his close friend Fletcher Pratt, recounting the implausible adventures of Midwestern everyman Harold Shea in mythological and literary worlds entered via the bicycle-like “syllogismobile”. He and Pratt also collaborated on Land of Unreason (1942), The Carnelian Cube (1948) and Tales from Gavagan’s Bar (1953). When World War II broke out, deCamp joined the Naval Reserve, serving at the Philadelphia Naval Yard along side Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. After the war, he produced planetary romances about human adventurers on the barbarian world Krishna (e. g., The Tower of Zanid (1958)), the sociologically speculative Rogue Queen (1951), and several fantasy novels (e. g., The Tritonian Ring (1951) and The Goblin Tower (1968)). Among his contributions to the fantasy genre was rescuing from oblivion the Conan tales of Robert E. Howard, to which he added pastiches of his own. He wrote a biography of Howard (1983, with Catherine Crook deCamp) and studies of sword-and-sorcery fiction, such as Literary Swordsmen and Sorcerors (1976). His also wrote half a dozen historical novels set in Classical Greece, as well as books on pseudo-science, the history of technology, the Scopes Trial and other topics. His autobiography, Time and Chance (1996), won the Hugo Award for Best Nonfiction Book. He received the Gandalf and Nebula Grand Master Awards (1976 and 1978). He was Author Guest of Honor at the 1966 World Science Fiction Convention.

Keith R. A. DeCandido is an author, editor and professional musician who has lived his entire life in the Bronx. After working as an SF editor and spending four years as producer and co-host of The Chronic Rift, a talk show devoted to science fiction, fantasy, comics and gaming, he formed Ablé-Shiloh Inc., a provider of writing, editorial and book packaging services. He has written many tie-in novels, short stories and comic book scripts based on Star Trek, Farscape, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Young Hercules, the Marvel universe, Magic: The Gathering and other properties. He was co-author of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Watcher’s Guide (1998). He has edited five anthologies, including Virtual Realities: The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester (1997). His first original novel, Dragon Precinct, a police procedural set in a fantasy realm, came out in 2004.

Alma Hromic Deckert was born in Yugoslavia and lived on three continents before settling in Washington State in 2000. Her six books include a memoir of her 20 years of life in Africa, a novel in the form of e-mail messages, the fantasy double-decker Changer of Days (2001 and 2002) and The Secrets of Jin-Shei (2004; as “Alma Alexander”), set in a mythological China. Her next book, The Hidden Queen, is due out next year.

Tom Deitz grew up in rural Georgia, the locale of many of his fantasy novels. His first, Windmaster’s Bane (1986), begins the saga of a Georgia lad whose gift of second sight leads him to adventures among the denizens of Faerie. The series has extended to nine volumes, the latest of which is Warstalker’s Track (1999). After that novel, he embarked on a new series, The Angen Chronicles, telling of the conflict of two nations in a faux-Nordic milieu. It consists of Bloodwinter (1999), Springwar (2000), Summerblood (2001) and Warautumn (2002).

Samuel R. Delany published his first novel, The Jewels of Aptor (1962), before his 21st birthday. By age 25, he had six more to his credit, including the Nebula-winning Babel-17 (1966). These books already displayed the innovative style, mythological resonances and passion for the “soft” sciences, notably linguistics and psychology, that were to mark their author as one of the chief luminaries of the SF “New Wave”. He gained further Nebula Awards for The Einstein Intersection (1967), “Aye, and Gomorrah. . . ” (1967, Best Short Story) and “Time Considered As a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones” (1969, Best Novelette; also a Hugo Award winner). In all, he has ten Hugo and ten Nebula Award nominations to his credit. His novels include Nova (1968), Dhalgren (1975), which sold over a million copies despite its length and density, Triton (1976), Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (1984) and the Neveryon series, in which complex culture-building masquerades as sword-and-sorcery. His memoir The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village 1957-65 (1988) won the Hugo Award for Best Non-Fiction Book. He co-edited the four volumes of Quark (1970-71, with Marilyn Hacker), an original anthology series that defined the New Wave for many readers. He also became an important academic practitioner of literary criticism, applying contemporary critical theory to SF in such books as The Jewel-Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction (1977) and Starboard Wine: More Notes on the Language of Science Fiction (1984). He received a Pilgrim Award for his work as a critic in 1985. Quite remarkably for someone who dropped out of college after one semester, he was appointed Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Massachusetts in 1988. For the past several years, he has taught at Temple University. He was Author Guest of Honor at the 1990 NASFiC and the 1995 World Science Fiction Convention.

Charles de Lint was born in the Netherlands but has lived in Canada since he was four months old. While working for record stores and as a weekend musician, he began writing fantasy stories for “little magazines”. His first sale brought in $10 (Canadian). His first professional sale was “The Fane of the Gray Rose” in 1979. In the same year, he published what was technically his first book, The Oak King’s Daughter, a chapbook issued by Triskell Press, which he had founded with Charles R. Saunders in 1971 to publish privately distributed volumes (collected in Triskell Tales: 22 Years of Chapbooks (2003)). His first full-length novel was The Riddle of the Wren (1984), set in a Tolkien-like world. With his next book, Moonheart: A Romance (1984), he found his métier in urban fantasy, where mythologies, particularly in his case Celtic and American Indian, underlie an otherwise quotidian contemporary setting, usually the fictional city of Newford, modeled on Ottawa. Among his notable novels are In Yarrow: An Autumn Tale (1986), Greenmantle (1988), The Little People (1991), Memory and Dream (1994), Trader (1996), Someplace To Be Flying (1997), the Nebula-nominated Forests of the Heart (2000), The Onion Girl (2001) and Spirits in the Wires (2003). He has also written thrillers under the name “Samuel R. Key”. He has been nominated 16 times for the World Fantasy Award, winning for the collection Moonlight and Vines (1999). Other collections of his short fiction include Hedgework and Guessery (1991), Tapping the Dream Tree (2002), A Handful of Coppers (2003) and Quicksilver & Shadow (2005). He is a regular book reviewer for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. His most recent novel is Trader (2005), in which a self-satisfied guitar maker swaps lives with a feckless ne’er-do-well. [Updated, 8/1/05]

Bradley Denton entered SF with “Music of the Spheres” (1984, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) and caused something of a stir with his heavy-metal oriented, parallel worlds debut novel, Wrack and Roll (1986). His later novels are Lunatics (1986; the hero is the moon goddess’ lover), Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede (1991), Blackburn (1993; a horror novel, nominated for the Bram Stoker Award, in which the reader is led to empathize with a serial killer) and the forthcoming Laughin’ Boy, featuring a weird trio of superheroes. His novellas “The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians” (1988) and “The Territory” (1992) were nominated for Hugo and Nebula Awards. Two collections of his stories have appeared: A Conflagration Artist (1993; winner of the World Fantasy Award) and One Day Closer to Death: Eight Stabs at Immortality (1998). His novella “Sergeant Chip” (2004) won the Theodore Sturgeon Award and was a Hugo Award nominee. [Updated, 8/1/05]

Nick DiChario has been publishing SF, fantasy, mystery and mainstream short fiction since 1992. He received Hugo Award nominations for Best Short Story for “The Winterberry” (1992; his first SF sale) and “Sarajevo” (1999). A collection of his collaborations with Mike Resnick, Magic Feathers: The Mike & Nick Show, was published in 2000. He is also fiction editor of the literary magazine Hazmat Review and co-edited an anthology of culinary mysteries, Death Dines at 8:30 (2001).

Vincent di Fate began his career as an animator, working primarily on television shows. In 1969, his illustrations began to appear in Analog and other SF magazines. Since then, he has created countless book and magazine covers. He has been nominated 11 times for the Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist, winning in 1979. Among his other honors are the Frank R. Paul Award for Outstanding Achievement in Science Fiction Illustration (1978) and a Chesley Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement (1998). NASA commissioned him in 1985 to create the official painting of the International Space Station. He is the author of Di Fate's Catalog of Science Fiction Hardware (1980) and Infinite Worlds: The Fantastic Visions of Science Fiction Art (1997; a history of American SF art). He is a past president of the Society of Illustrators and the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists. Omni magazine said of his work, “Moody and powerful, the paintings of Vincent di Fate depict mechanical marvels and far frontiers of a future technocracy built on complicated machinery and human resourcefulness. Di Fate is something of a grand old man in the highly specialized field of technological space art. Stirring images of far-flung environments have been his trademark.” He was Artist Guest of Honor at the 1992 World Science Fiction Convention.

Gordon R. Dickson (1923–2001) wrote 55 novels and over 100 stories, starting with “Trespass!” (Fantastic Stories Quarterly, 1950), a collaboration with his lifelong friend Poul Anderson. His first novel was Alien from Arcturus (1956). He was perhaps best known for his Childe Cycle, a future history (with extensions into the past) that centered on, but expanded beyond, the Dorsai society of far-future professional soldiers. Books in the series include The Genetic General (1959), Necromancer (1962), Soldier, Ask Not (1967), The Tactics of Mistake (1971), The Final Encyclopedia (1984) and The Chantry Guild (1988). He was active, too, as a fantasy writer. The Dragon and the George (1976) and its numerous sequels look at the confrontation between Man and Dragon from the point of view of the draconian underdogs. He was nominated for eight Hugo and two Nebula Awards, winning with “Soldier, Ask Not” (1964, Best Novelette Hugo”), “Call Him Lord” (1966, Best Novelette Hugo and Nebula), “Lost Dorsai” (1980, Best Novella Hugo) and “The Cloak and the Staff” (1980, Best Novelette Hugo). Several collections of his short fiction have been published, including The Book of Gordon R. Dickson (1973), In the Bone: The Best Science Fiction of Gordon R. Dickson (1978) and The Human Edge (2003). With Poul Anderson, he produced the popular “Hoka” stories, about a bear-like species who take fiction literally, collected in Earthman’s Burden (1957), Star Prince Charlie (1975) and Hoka! Hoka! Hoka! (1983). A Hoka novelette, “The Adventure of the Misplaced Hound” (1953), is one of this year’s Retro-Hugo nominees. He served as president of the Science Fiction Writers of America and was Author Guest of Honor at the 1984 World Science Fiction Convention.

William C. Dietz has written more than 25 science fiction novels. His first, War World (1986; later retitled Galactic Bounty), began a series about interstellar bounty hunter Sam McCade, now in its fifth volume, McCade for Hire (2004). His other novels include Drifter (1991), Legion of the Damned (1993; first in a series about cybernetic soldiers), Steelheart (1998, for young adults), Deathday (2001), For More Than Glory (2003) and several Star Wars and other tie-ins. His latest is For Those Who Fell (2004), in the Legion of the Damned series.

Leo and Diane Dillon met at the Parsons School of Design in 1957 and since then have collaborated on thousands of illustrations for hundreds of books. They jointly won the Best Professional Artist Hugo Award in 1971 and were nominated in 1969 and 1970. The Art of Leo and Diane Dillon (1981) was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Non-Fiction Book. They have also been nominated nine times for Chesley Awards. In addition to creating SF and fantasy art, they are active as illustrators of children’s and young adult books.

Larry DiTillio is a television writer whose scripts for Babylon 5 included the highly regarded episodes “TKO” and “Gropos”. He has written well over a hundred scripts for live action and animated TV series, including Beast Wars: The Transformers, Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future, Swamp Thing, Hypernauts, The Real Ghostbusters, Galaxy High School and Conan the Adventurer. He has also designed fantasy role playing games for Chaosium and Flying Buffalo.

Cory Doctorow works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and co-authored Essential Blogging (2002). He began publishing science fiction in odd places when he was 17, but his first professional sale came in 1998. He won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2000. His novelette “OwnzOred” (2002) was a Nebula Award nominee. His books include a story collection, A Place So Foreign, And Eight More (2003), and two novels, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003; a merging of coming-of-age romantic comedy with cybernetics) and Eastern Standard Tribe (2004; another cybernetic extravaganza).

Tom Doherty worked for Simon & Schuster, where he was sales manager for the paperback launch of Lord of the Rings, and Grossett & Dunlap, where he oversaw the young adult SF line, before becoming publisher of Ace Books in 1976. In 1980 he left Ace to found Tom Doherty & Associates, which publishes Tor Books, the world’s most active science fiction and fantasy imprint. The company also has two other lines: Forge Books, for non-SF titles, and Orb Books, which produces trade paperback editions of works that would otherwise go out of print.

Stephen R. Donaldson lived most of his boyhood in India, where his father was a medical missionary. Dr. Donaldson’s work with lepers gave his son the idea for the anti-hero of Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever (1977, consisting of Lord Foul’s Bane (winner of the British Fantasy Society Award for Best Novel), The Illearth War and The Power That Preserves). The protagonist, afflicted by leprosy, is transported from Earth into a fantasy world, which he refuses to accept as real. This powerful and disturbing work earned its author the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1979. The second series of Chronicles (The Wounded Land (1980), The One Tree (1982), White Gold Wielder (1983)) takes place thousands of Land-years later, when the legend of Covenant’s defeat of Lord Foul has achieved mythic status, but the myth has itself become distorted and diseased. Two less intense novels, The Mirror of Her Dreams (1986) and A Man Rides Through (1987), likewise feature a fantasy universe parallel to ours, in which a young woman finds love after confronting a world-threatening crisis. Donaldson then turned to science fiction, producing the Gap series of vigorously transformed space operas ((The Gap into Conflict: The Real Story (1990), The Gap into Vision: Forbidden Knowledge (1991), The Gap into Power: A Dark and Hungry God Arises (1992), The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order (1994), This Day All Gods Die: The Gap into Ruin (1996)). The last two volumes were British Fantasy Society Best Novel nominees. He also writes short fiction (collected in Daughter of Regals and Other Stories (1984) and Reave the Just and Other Tales (1999)), as well as mysteries under the name “Reed Stephens”. The Runes of the Earth (2004) begins a new series, The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, whose protagonist is the dead Thomas’ dead lover. [Updated, 8/1/05]

Debra Doyle has a doctorate in English Literature, specializing in Old English poetry. Under her own name, as well as “Robyn Tallis”, “Nicholas Adams” and “Martin Delrio”, she has written over 60 science fiction, fantasy and horror novels, frequently in collaboration with James D. MacDonald. Their best known series is Mage Worlds, which mixes SF and fantasy in a saga about the reunification of a magically sundered galaxy. The sequence began with The Price of the Stars (1992) and has continued through A Working of Stars (2002). Much of her work, such as the Circle of Magic (with MacDonald) and Horror High (as “Nicholas Adams”) series, is for young adults.

Gardner Dozois edited Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine from 1986 through 2004 and turned it into the field’s most influential periodical since John W. Campbell, Jr.’s Astounding. During his editorship, he won the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor 16 times. Before joining Asimov’s, he was an active anthologist. He edited the Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year anthologies from 1977 through 1981, then in 1984 launched the still-continuing Year’s Best Science Fiction. His editorial stature is such that fans often forget that his early career as a writer was worthy of note, gaining five Hugo and ten Nebula Award nominations, and winning Best Short Story Nebulas for “The Peacemaker” (1983) and “Morning Child” (1984). His novel Strangers (1974) was a Nebula Award Best Novel nominee. His short stories have been collected in Geodesic Dreams: The Best Short Fiction of Gardner Dozois (1992). He was Editor Guest of Honor at the 2001 World Science Fiction Convention. [Updated, 8/1/05]

David Drake mastered Latin while serving in Vietnam (Horace and Vergil helped him get through the war), returned to finish law school, and spent eight years as a town attorney in North Carolina. During that time, he wrote fiction as a sideline, having made his first sale in 1966 while still in college. In 1979 he published his first two books, Hammer’s Slammers, an assemblage of military-oriented SF stories, and The Dragon Lord, a sword-and-sorcery novel. The next year he gave up practicing law to become a full-time writer. Since then, he has written 50 novels and a hundred stories. Though best known for the often brutal depictions of future warfare in Hammer’s Slammers and its sequels, he has written virtually every variety of SF and has edited or co-edited some 30 anthologies. His short stories are collected in Grimmer Than Hell (2003) and Other Times Than Peace (2006). His latest releases include Master of the Cauldron (2004, fantasy), An Oblique Approach (2005, with Eric Flint) and The World Turned Upside Down (2005, an anthology of “breakthrough concept” stories, edited with Jim Baen and Eric Flint) and The Weight of Glory (2005, in his space operatic Lt. Leary series). His latest novel is The Fortress of Glass (2006), the opening volume of a new fantasy series. A new military SF novel, Some Golden Harbor, is forthcoming. [Updated, 3/11/06]

Diane Duane was a psychiatric nurse before friends talked her into trying to publish the stories that she wrote for her own amusement. Her debut novel, The Door into Fire (1979), began the Tale of the Five series, five books tracing the sword-and-sorcery adventures of five magically talented companions. At roughly the same time, she started the Young Wizards series, written for young adults and featuring two aspiring teenaged wizards from New York City. Seven volumes have appeared so far, from So You Want to be a Wizard? (1983) to The Wizard’s Holiday (2003). She has published a total of more than 30 novels, including further fantasies, several Star Trek, comics and gaming tie-ins, and five books co-authored with her husband Peter Morwood. She also writes short fiction and has over 50 screenwriting credits, including an Emmy-nominated episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Where No One Has Gone Before”. Her latest adult, non-tie-in novel is Stealing the Elf-King’s Roses (2002), a parallel worlds detective fantasy. She was Toastmaster of the 1995 World Science Fiction Convention.

Thomas A. Easton holds a doctorate in Theoretical Biology from the University of Chicago, is Professor of Life Sciences at Thomas College in Waterville, Maine, and has authored a number of textbooks, such as Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Science, Technology, and Society (2004). Since 1979 he has been the regular book review for Analog and has written a dozen novels, most dealing with the implications of genetic engineering. They include the Organic Future series (Sparrowhawk (1990), Greenhouse (1991), Woodsman (1992), Tower of the Gods (1993), Seeds of Destiny (1993)), Unto the Last Generation (2000; set in the aftermath of an ecological disaster) and Firefight (2003; about environmentalist and other ideological terrorism). His short fiction is collected in Ten Science Fiction Stories (1989) and The Electric Gene Machine (2000).

Claire Eddy joined Tor Books in 1985 after getting a degree in medieval history and working as a freelance editor. She is now a senior editor at Tor Books, where her projects include science fiction, fantasy, thrillers, historical novels and mysteries. She has worked with greats like Jack Vance, Gordon R. Dickson and Orson Scott Card, as well as introducing such new fantasy writers as Jacqueline Carey, Sara Douglass and Juliet Marillier.

Scott Edelman is editor-in-chief of the Sci-Fi Channel’s weekly magazine Sci Fi and its webzine Science Fiction Weekly. He has edited many other magazines, including Science Fiction Age, Sci-Fi Universe, Sci-Fi Flix and FOOM (Friends of Ol’ Marvel). He has also worked as a writer and editor for Marvel Comics, published a horror novel (The Gift (1990)) and written short stories, 13 of which are included in These Words Are Haunted (2001). His “A Plague on Both Your Houses” (1996) was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Best Short Story. He has been nominated four times for the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor.

George Alec Effinger (1947–2002) met Damon Knight while browsing in a bookstore, enrolled in Knight’s Clarion East workshop, and had three stories in the first Clarion anthology. The first of his seven Hugo Award nominations came in 1972 (for the short story “All the Last Wars at Once”). In 1973 he was runner-up for the first John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. He was nominated for the Nebula Award five times. His early work, ranging from his debut novel What Entropy Means to Me (1972) to his Hugo/Nebula/Seiun winning novelette “Schrödinger's Kitten” (1988), played with contingency, featuring characters whose lives followed multiplying paths stemming from different choices at crucial moments. From there the transition to cyberpunk, with which he is most closely identified, was perhaps a natural one. His incomplete Marîd Audran series (When Gravity Fails (1986), A Fire in the Sun (1989), The Exile Kiss (1991)) is set in a near-future Middle East where high technology coexists with medieval Arab mores. Alongside these works, he wrote fine light comedy and satire, some of which is collected in Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordsperson (1993). Two posthumous collections of his short fiction have been published: Budayeen Nights (2003) and George Alec Effinger Live! From Planet Earth (2005). [Updated, 8/1/05]

Bob Eggleton paints sea monsters, dragons, dinosaurs and lots of book covers. He has carried off the Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist eight times. He won another Hugo in 2001 for Greetings from Earth: The Art of Bob Eggleton, and his illustrated fabulation Dragonhenge was nominated for Best Related Book in 2003. He has been nominated for 39 Chesley Awards (second only to Michael Whelan) and has won twelve times (putting him in a three-way tie for the lead). He is a Fellow of the International Association of Astronomical Artists, has illustrated Godzilla books for children and does many, many other things. He was Artist Guest of Honor at the 2000 World Science Fiction Convention. [Updated, 8/1/05]

Harlan Ellison was a hyperactive SF fan in his native Cleveland before he embarked on his writing career. His first sale (“Glowworm”, Infinity Science Fiction) came in early 1956; within three years, he had published over 150 stories and articles, both SF and other. The first of his rare novels, Rumble (1958), was a mainstream story that he researched by spending ten weeks incognito as a member of a New York City street gang. Within a few years, he had established himself as a wide-ranging and inventive story teller. Collections of his work include Paingod and Other Delusions (1965), I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (1967), The Beast the Shouted Love at the Heart of the World (1969), Over the Edge: Stories from Somewhere Else (1970) and The Essential Ellison: A 35-Year Retrospective (1987). He has won ten Hugo and three Nebula Awards. His work as a screenwriter has also been important to the field. He won Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo Awards in 1967 and 1976 for the Star Trek episode “City on the Edge of Forever” and the movie A Boy and His Dog. (His story of the same name won the Best Novella Hugo in 1969.) He is the only scenarist ever to win three best script awards from the Writers’ Guild of America (for “City on the Edge of Forever”, a Man from UNCLE episode and the original – not the filmed – pilot script for the unsuccessful TV series The Starlost). As an editor, he created two of SF’s most celebrated and controversial anthologies: Dangerous Visions (1967) and Again, Dangerous Visions (1972). He was Author Guest of Honor at the 1978 World Science Fiction Convention and Toastmaster of the 1961, 1967 and 1969 Worldcons.

Lloyd Arthur Eshbach was a pioneer science fiction fan and a popular writer for the pulps in the 1930’s. His first published story was “The Man With the Silver Disc” (1930). Examples of his early fiction are collected in Tyrant of Time (1955). As the pulp era dwindled, so did his literary output, until he returned to active writing in his seventies with Subspace Encounter (1983, completion of a manuscript by his friend E. E. Smith) and the Gates of Lucifer series (The Land Beyond the Gate (1984), The Armlet of the Gods (1986), The Sorceress of Scath (1988), The Scroll of Lucifer (1990)), which sends its hero to parallel worlds based on different conceptions of the afterlife. He is best known, however, not for his fiction but as the proprietor of Fantasy Press (1946-1958), widely regarded as the best of the post-World War II SF small presses. Among its books was Of Worlds Beyond: The Science of Science Fiction Writing (1947), which was the first book about modern SF and contained essays by John W. Campbell, Jr., Robert A. Heinlein, A. E. van Vogt and other notable figures in the field. His autobiographical memoir Over My Shoulder: Reflections on a Science Fiction Era (1983) is largely devoted to Fantasy Press and other SF small presses of the 1930’s through the 1950’s.

Nancy Etchemendy has written several juvenile SF novels, beginning with The Watchers of Space (1980). Her latest is The Power of UN (2000), for pre-teens. She has written short fiction, mostly appearing in anthologies, for both children and adults. Her first published short story was “Clotaire’s Balloon” (1984). Cat in Glass and Other Tales of the Unnatural (2002) is a collection of short stories for young adults.

Dennis Etchison is an author, editor and screenwriter whose Southern California-themed short fiction has been called “the state of the art in modern horror” by Publisher’s Weekly. His first professional sale was “Odd Boy Out” (Escapade, 1961). “The Dark Country” (1981) won the World Fantasy and British Fantasy Awards for Best Short Story, and “The Olympic Runner” (1986) and “The Dog Park” (1993) won British Fantasy Awards. His short stories are collected in The Dark Country (1982), Red Dreams (1984), The Blood Kiss (1988) and Death Artist (2000). His first novel was The Fog (1979), a novelization of the movie of the same name. He has written other tie-ins, mostly under the name “Jack Martin” (a recurring character in his fiction). His original novels are Darkside (1986), Shadowman (1993), California Gothic (1996) and Double Edge (1997). He has edited several notable anthologies, including Cutting Edge (1978), MetaHorror (1992), which won the World Fantasy Award, and The Museum of Horrors (2001).

Jane Fancher is a writer and artist whose first SF work consisted of graphic novel adaptations of works by C. J. Cherryh, published as Gate of Ivrel: Claiming Rights (1987) and Gate of Ivrel: Fever Dreams (1988). Her first trio of novels (Groundties (1991), Uplink (1992), Harmonies of the ‘Net (1992)), set on a colony planet beset by a computer-generated crisis, showed Cherryh’s influence. Her second series (Ring of Lightning (1995), Ring of Intrigue (1997), Ring of Destiny (1999)) is fantasy, depicting a city threatened by a magical catastrophe.

Philip José Farmer sold his first SF story (“O’Brien and Obrenov”) in 1946 but attracted no real attention until six years later, when his short novel “The Lovers” appeared in Startling Stories after having been rejected by both John W. Campbell, Jr. (because it included sex) and H. L. Gold (who thought that it was racist). Taboo-shattering in its day, the story was a major reason why its author won the Hugo Award for Best New Author in 1953 (the very first year that the awards were given). Some of his other stories from this early period, such as “Sail On! Sail On!” (1952) and “Mother” (1953), are also classics. His attempt to make a full-time living as a writer was stymied, however, when publishers who had accepted his first two novels collapsed before rendering payment. The manuscript of one of those books was lost; years later its concepts were resurrected for the Riverworld series, which began with To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971) and has continued for many more volumes. It is Farmer’s most famous work, but, even if it had been permanently lost, many others would cement his place as a major SF figure. An incomplete list includes the Father Carmody stories (collected in Night of Light (1966) and Father to the Stars (1981); mixing murder with theology), Flesh (1960; a fictionalization of Robert Graves’ “White Goddess” theories), “Open to Me, My Sister” (1960; another story that had trouble finding an editor bold enough to buy it), “Riders of the Purple Wage” (1967; winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novella), The World of Tiers (1981; an exuberant set of pocket universes) and the playful Wold Newton Family series, which places Tarzan, Doc Savage and other fictional heroes within the same extended family. His most recent solo novel is The Dark Heart of Time (1999), one of his Tarzan pastiches. A long overdue collection of his short works, The Best of Philip José Farmer (2006), marked the 60th year of his writing career. He was Author Guest of Honor at the 1968 World Science Fiction Convention. [Updated, 3/11/06]

Raymond E. Feist designed fantasy role playing games before creating the universe of Riftwar, which bears traces of its gaming background. Divided into several sub-series, Riftwar now comprises over 20 volumes, beginning with Magician (1982). The most recent installment is the Conclave of Shadows sub-series (Talon of the Silver Hawk (2003), King of Foxes (2003), Exile’s Return (2005)). Coming next year is Flight of the Nighthawks. He has written a few non-series novels. Faerie Tale (1988) is a dark fantasy in a contemporary setting, quite unlike his normal round of heroic action. Serpent Queen (1995) was a British Fantasy Society Best Novel nominee. [Updated, 8/1/05]

Sheila Finch was born in London but moved to the United States to do graduate work in medieval literature and linguistics. Her first SF story, “The Confessions of Melakos”, appeared in 1977 and her first novel, Infinity’s Web, whose protagonist lives in five parallel worlds, in 1985. She has published five further novels: Triad (1986; making use of her linguistics training), the Shaper Exile series (The Garden of the Shaped (1987), Shaper's Legacy (1989), Shaping the Dawn (1989)) and Tiger in the Sky (1999; winner of the San Diego Book Award for Best Young Adult Novel). Her novella “Reading the Bones” (1998) won a Nebula Award. It was expanded into a novel of the same name published in 2003. Her latest novel is an espionage thriller, Birds (2004).

John L. Flynn has been nominated three times, including this year, for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer. In his mundane life, he teaches English at Towson State University in Maryland. He writes extensively for print and electronic SF fan publications and has published several books on genre films, including Future Threads: Costume Design in Science Fiction (1985), Cinematic Nightmares (1989), Cinematic Vampires (1992), Phantoms of the Opera (1993) and Dissecting “Aliens” (1995). His short stories, most of which have appeared in fannish venues, are collected in Visions in Light and Shadow (2001).

Michael Flynn sold his first professional story, “On the High Frontier”, in 1982. His debut novel, In the Country of the Blind (1990), won the Prometheus Award for libertarian-oriented science fiction and the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel. He then co-authored Fallen Angels (1991, with Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle; also a Prometheus winner), in which the suppression of Global Warming leads to a new Ice Age. The book is notable for including numerous well-known, lightly disguised SF fans in its cast of characters. His other novels form the Firestar series, about futuristic interstellar travel with undertones of the Age of Sail: Firestar (1996), Rogue Star (1998), Lodestar (2000), Falling Stars (2001) and The Wreck of The River of Stars (2003). He has received three Hugo Award nominations for Best Novella, for “Eifelheim” (1986), “The Forest of Time” (1987) and “Melodies of the Heart” (1994). His short fiction is collected in The Forest of Time and Other Stories (1990) and The Nanotech Chronicles (1991).

John M. Ford sold his first story (“This, Too, We Reconcile”) to Analog in 1976, where he published his popular “Alternities Corporation” stories between 1979 and 1981. His first novel (not counting children’s books written under pseudonyms) was Web of Angels (1980), which makes use of cybernetic technology in ways that foreshadow cyberpunk. The Dragon Waiting (1983), in whose alternate history Europe never converted to Christianity, won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. Growing Up Weightless (1993), an unromanticized look at life in a Lunar colony, shared the Philip K. Dick Award. His novella “Fugue State” (1987) and novelette “Erase/Record/Play” (1996) were Nebula Award nominees. Three collections of his short fiction have been published: Casting Fortune (1989), From the End of the Twentieth Century (1997) and Heat of Fusion and Other Stories (2004). He has also written Star Trek and gaming tie-ins. His latest novel, The Last Hot Time (2000), a near-future urban fantasy, depicts an underworld of gangster elves.

Alan Dean Foster accidentally became a professional in 1968, when August Derleth published one of his letters to The Arkham Collector as a short story and sent him money for it. His first novel, The Tar-Aiym Krang (1972), introduced the galaxy-spanning Humanx Commonwealth, along with his most popular characters, the psi-talented orphan Flinx and his alien pet Pip. His other long-running series began with the fantasy Spellsinger (1983). Of his non-series books, the generally most highly regarded are Cachalot (1980; featuring aliens who resemble sapient whales), The Man Who Used the Universe (1983) and Cyber Way (1990). He has written a total of about a hundred novels, plus a vast number of short stories (some collected in Impossible Places (2003)) and articles on science, films and scuba diving. His fiction includes not only SF and fantasy but also mystery, Western, historical and mainstreams works. He has written novelizations and tie-ins for numerous films, most notably Star Wars. He recently has been writing about the Humanx Commonwealth’s founding (Phylogenesis (1999), Dirge (2000), Diuturnity’s Dawn (2002), Drowning World (2003)), as well as publishing a host of film-connected books. His latest outing is Taken, a comic SF trilogy about a Chicago commodities broker kidnapped by aliens, which began with Lost and Found (2004) and continues in The Light Years Beneath My Feet (2005). His Web site (www.alandeanfoster.com) won the 2003 Wooden Rocket Award for best individual author’s site. [Updated, 8/1/05]

Frank Kelly Freas (1922–2005) was the only person ever to be Artist Guest of Honor at two World Science Fiction Conventions: Chicon IV in 1982 and Torcon in 2003. Born in New York and raised in Canada, he studied engineering and medicine before finding his métier as an artist. With the U.S. Air Force in World War II, he decorated the noses of warplanes with “seductive sirens”. After the war, he worked as an illustrator and photographer. His first SF work was the cover of the November 1950 issue of Weird Tales, which greatly impressed John W. Campbell, Jr. He soon became an Astounding regular and was the most popular of SF magazine artists throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s. At the same time he became known to a different segment of the public through his long association with Mad Magazine. He also designed the shoulder patch for Skylab 1. His paintings and pen-and-ink drawings ran the gamut from deeply poignant to wildly whimsical. In the words of his long-time friend and disciple, artist Larry Stewart, “The most distinctive element in Kelly’s work is the incredible dynamism and life that he puts into every image. . . . Looking at any of the many works of this singular artist, you are mesmerized by the pulse of life – the feeling that this isn’t just a picture, that it has a life of its own.” Examples can be found in Frank Kelly Freas (1957), Frank Kelly Freas: The Art of Science Fiction (1977), Frank Kelly Freas: A Separate Star (1984) and Frank Kelly Freas: As He Sees It (2000). The recipient of too many honors to enumerate, including ten Best Professional Artist Hugo Awards, he remained actively at work for over half a century until just before his death on January 2, 2005. [Updated, 3/11/06]

James Frenkel has been an SF editor since the 1970’s. He began his career at Dell, where he edited the Binary Star volumes, each containing a pair of novels. In 1983 he founded Bluejay Books, a well-regarded but underfinanced publisher. He is currently an editor for Tor Books. His anthologies include True Names: And the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier (1984, with Vernor Vinge), Bangs and Whimpers: Stories About the End of the World (1999) and Technohorror: Tales of Terror, Suspense and Intrigue (1999).

Michael Jan Friedman has written over 30 Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation novels, including the Stargazer series (Gauntlet (2002) et al.) that tells the story of Jean-Luc Picard’s first starship command. Outside the Star Trek universe, he has published juveniles and the Vidar series (The Hammer and the Horn (1985), The Seekers and the Sword (1985), The Fortress and the Fire (1988)), about a son of the Norse god Odin, and The Glove of Maiden’s Hair (1987), a fantasy set in New York City.

Esther M. Friesner taught Spanish at Yale University for several years before plunging into a full-time writing career. Her first story was “The Stuff of Heroes” (Asimov’s, 1982). Her short fiction has garnered one Hugo and three Nebula Award nominations, with “Death and the Librarian” (1995) winning the Nebula Award for Best Short Story. Two collections of her stories have appeared: Up the Wall and Other Stories (2000) and Death and the Librarian and Other Stories (2002). Mustapha and His Wise Dog (1985) was the first of her 27 novels. Though that and some of its successors were straightforward quest tales, she established a comic, whimsical tone in such books as New York by Knight (1986), Elf Defense (1988), Here Be Demons (1988) and Gnome Man’s Land (1991). More serious are Psalms of Herod (1995), set in a world where human reproductive biology has mutated terrifyingly, and its sequel The Song of Mary (1996). In recent years she has written tie-ins to, among others, Star Trek, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Men in Black. As an editor, she is best known for the tongue-in-cheek anthology Chicks in Chain Mail (1995) and its successors. The fifth in the series, Turn the Other Chick, is forthcoming. She also edited Alien Pregnant by Elvis (1994) and the grimmer Blood Muse (1995), devoted to vampires. She was Toastmaster of the 2001 World Science Fiction Convention and is known to family and friends as “Queen of the Hamsters”.

Gregory Frost published his first SF story, “Rubbish”, in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1984. His debut novel, Lyrec (1984), is a parallel worlds fantasy. Tain (1986) and Remscela (1988) (republished in one volume as Crimson Spear: The Blood of Cu Chulainn (2001)) are based on the legend of the Ireland’s most famous hero. He turned from fantasy to science fiction with The Pure Cold Light (1993), a tale with cyberpunk overtones set in a near-future Philadelphia. His latest novel, Fitcher’s Brides (2002), is a new take on the Bluebeard theme. He has also written a fairly steady stream of short stories, some of which are collected in Attack of the Jazz Giants and Other Stories (2005). His “Madonna of the Maquiladora” (2002) was a Hugo and Nebula Award nominee for Best Novelette. [Updated, 8/1/05]

Neil Gaiman is a noir Englishman transplanted to Minnesota. He initially gained his reputation as a writer of comics and graphic novels, of which the best known is the Sandman series (1989–1996). One Sandman installment, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1990), won the World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story. His other major graphic novels are The Books of Magic (1990-91), Death: The High Cost of Living (1993) and Death: The Time of Your Life (1997). His stories in text are beginning, however, to eclipse those in words-and-pictures. Good Omens (1990, with Terry Pratchett), which might be called an end-of-the-world novel (except that the world doesn’t end), was a World Fantasy Award Best Novel nominee. Neverwhere (1996), a TV mini-series and novel, portrayed a parallel fantasy London. The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish (1997) was listed by Newsweek as one of the best children’s books of 1997. American Gods (2000) won the Hugo, Nebula and Bram Stoker Awards for Best Novel and was nominated for the World Fantasy Award as well. Coraline (2002) won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novella. His Holmes-Lovecraft pastiche, “A Study in Emerald” (2003) won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story. His short fiction has been collected in, among others, Angels and Visitations (1993), Smoke and Mirrors (1998) and Adventures in the Dream Trade (2002). He has edited several anthologies, including The Weerde Book 1 (1992, with Mary Gentle), The Weerde Book 2: The Book of the Ancients (1993) and The Dreaming: Through the Gates of Horn and Ivory (1999). His most recent books are The Wolves in the Walls (2003; like Coraline, a horror/fantasy for very brave children) and Anansi Boys (2005), set in the same world as American Gods. [Updated, 3/11/06]

Craig Shaw Gardner began his career as a writer of comic fantasy with “A Malady of Magicks” (Fantastic, 1978), which was expanded into his novel of the same name (1986), the first of series noteworthy for slapstick and painful puns. He followed with two other light sequences: the Cineverse cycle (Slaves of the Volcano God (1989), Bride of the Slime Monster (1990), Revenge of the Fluffy Bunnies (1990)), set in a multiverse of execrable film genres; and Arabian Nights (The Other Sinbad (1991), A Bad Day for Ali Baba (1991), Scheherazade’s Night Out (1992), The Last Arabian Night (1993)). His tone altered in the Dragon Circle series (Dragon Sleeping (1994), Dragon Waking (1995), Dragon Burning (1996)), which deals seriously with a troubled family transplanted into a fantasy world. His Changeling trilogy (The Changeling War (1999), The Sorceror’s Gun (1999) and The Magic Dead (2000), all as by “Peter Garrison”), about a war between our world and its fantasy doublet, is also serious. He has also written movie and TV novelizations and tie-ins, notably for The Lost Boys, Batman, Back to the Future and Angel.

James Alan Gardner wrote his Master’s thesis on the mathematics of black holes, after which he decided to take up fiction as a career. Two pre-professional stories, “The Children of the CrPche” (1990; Writers of the Future Grand Prize) and “Muffin Explains Teleology to the World at Large” (1990; Aurora Award) won awards before his first professional sale, “Reaper” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March 1991). His novelette, “Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream” (1997) was a Hugo and Nebula Award nominee. His debut novel, Expendable (1997), introduced the Explorer Corps, misfit adventurers whose lives can be freely put at risk because nobody cares much about them. He has written six more novels set in the same universe, the most recent of which is Radiant (2004).

Mary Gentle writes books that shift among science fiction, fantasy and alternate worlds and are not in any way “gentle”. That she holds a master’s degree in War Studies will not surprise any reader of her works. After A Hawk in Silver (1977), a fantasy for young adults, published when she was only 17, she wrote the planetary romance Golden Witchbreed (1983) and its sequel Ancient Light (1987), about a world strewn with the remains of a high-tech culture. She next turned to fantasy in Rats and Gargoyles (1990), in which giant rats are the dominant species. The adventures of the book’s heroine continue in The Architecture of Desire (1991), where she moves to an alternate Elizabethan England. Her latest work is a four-volume novel The Book of Ash, whose first part, A Secret History (1999), won the British Science Fiction Association’s Best Novel Award. Blending alternate history, time travel and military SF, it recounts the career of its eponymous heroine from eight-year-old prostitute to warlord of a very strange 16th Century Europe. Subsequent volumes are Carthage Ascendant. The Wild Machines and Lost Burgundy (all 2000). Her short fiction is collected in Cartomancy (2004). Her latest novel is 1610: A Sundial in the Grave (2003), which bizarrely mixes royal assassination plots, wandering samurai, hermetic sages and the Shakespearean theater. Her next, Ilario: The Lion’s Eye, featuring a medieval hermaphrodite, is scheduled for later this year year. [Updated, 3/12/06]

David Gerrold is instantly recognizable as the author of the classic Star Trek episode “The Trouble With Tribbles” (1967), but that is far from the full extent of his achievements. He has, for instance, received three Hugo and five Nebula Award nominations, and his novelette “The Martian Child” (1994) won both awards. His first SF novel was The Flying Sorcerors (1971, with Larry Niven), and he has since written about 25 more. His space opera series, The War Against the Chtorr (A Matter for Men (1983), A Day for Damnation (1984), A Rage for Revenge (1989), A Season for Slaughter (1993)), has a large following and rises above simple military action (which isn’t at all absent). It was followed by the Heinleinesque Starsiders trilogy (Jumping Off the Planet (2000), Bouncing Off the Moon (2001), Leaping to the Stars (2002)) and the mainstream The Martian Child (2002), inspired by his experiences as an adoptive father. His Star Wolf trilogy (The Voyage of the Star Wolf (2003), The Middle of Nowhere (2003), Blood and Fire (2004)) features an eponymous starship that battles technologically advanced aliens and a mysterious plague. Some of his short fiction is collected in Alternate Gerrolds (2005). His latest novel is Child of Earth (2005), the first volume of a young adult trilogy centering on a multi-parent family’s adventures as emigrants from Earth. [Updated, 8/1/05]

Alexis Gilliland is a cartoonist and writer who has won four Best Fan Artist Hugo Awards. His novels are in a light vein, drawing on a quarter century career as a government chemist for insight into the ways and means of bureaucracy. His first set of novels (The Revolution from Rosinante (1981), Long Shot for Rosinante (1981) and The Pirates of Rosinante (1982)) was responsible for his winning the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. The End of the Empire (1983) brings a humorous touch to a rebellion against a galactic empire, and the Wizenbeak series (Wizenbeak (1986), The Shadow Shaia (1990) and The Lord of the Troll-Bats (1992)) does the same for high fantasy. He has also published three collections of cartoons: The Iron Law of Bureacracy (1979), Who Says Paranoia Isn’t “In” Any More? (1985) and The Waltzing Wizard (1990).

Laura Anne Gilman is an editor and occasional writer. She began her SF editing career with Ace Books in 1990 and has worked for Berkeley, Dutton, New American Library and Penguin Putnam. Her fiction includes five novels: Quantum Leap: Double or Nothing (1995, with C. J. Henderson), Poltergeist: The Legacy (2000, under the name “L. A. Liverakos”), two Buffy the Vampire Slayer tie-ins co-authored with Josepha Sherman (Visitors (1999) and Deep Water (2000)) and Staying Dead (2004), the first volume in a romantic fantasy series set in a hidden subculture of psychics. She has also published several short stories and written a nonfiction book of SF interest, Yeti, the Abominable Snowman (2002).

Owl Goingback writes horror fiction drawing on American Indian themes. After a career in the Air Force and as a restaurant owner, he began writing full time in 1987. His short story “Grass Dancer” (1995) was a Nebula Award nominee. Crota (1996), won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel. He has since written Shaman Moon (1997), Darker Than Night (1999; a Bram Stoker Best Novel Award nominee), Evil Whispers (2001) and Breed (2002), as well as two children’s novels.

Stephen Goldin began his SF writing with “The Girls on USSF 193” (If, 1965) and gained a Nebula nomination for his short story “The Last Ghost” (1971). His early novels, beginning with Herds (1975), were formula adventures published by Laser Books. More interesting was his Family D’Alembert series, developed from an E. E. Smith story about an extended family that spends its time saving the galaxy. The initial volume, The Imperial Stars (1976), had ten sequels, continuing through Revolt of the Galaxy (1985). After two fairly heavy novels, The Eternity Brigade (1980; a grim tale of endlessly reincarnated soldiers) and A World Called Solitude (1981), he turned to lighter fare in Jade Darcy and the Affair of Honor (1988) and Jade Darcy and the Zen Pirates (1990). He has also written the Parsina fantasy series, whose latest volume is Treachery of the Demon King (2002). His short fiction is collected in The Last Ghost and Other Stories (1999). He has served as editor of the SFWA Bulletin and wrote The Business of Being a Writer (1982, with Kathleen Sky).

Lisa Goldstein tried to sell her fantasy stories without success, until she hit upon the idea of drawing on Jewish myth and legend for her themes. Her first novel, The Red Magician (1982), whose heroine is a Hungarian Jewish girl living through the 1940’s, won the American Book Award for Best Paperback. Her subsequent books have included contemporary fantasies with strong magic realist elements, such as The Dream Years (1985; a World Fantasy Award nominee), A Mask for the General (1987; a near-future dystopia, nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award) and Dark Cities Underground (1999; an exploration of the real meaning of Neverland, Narnia and other secondary worlds), historical fantasies like Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon (1993; a faery war in Elizabethan England, with Christopher Marlowe as a private investigator), and unusual twists on high fantasy themes, as in Summer King, Winter Fool (1995). Her short fiction has gained one Hugo and four Nebula Award nominations. It is collected in Daily Voices (1989) and Travellers in Magic (1994). Her latest book is The Alchemist’s Door (2002), which brings together Elizabethan occultist John Dee and Rabbi Judah Loew, maker of the golem.

Steven Gould sold his first story, “The Touch of Their Eyes”, to Analog in 1980. “Rory” (1984) was a Hugo Best Short Story Award nominee, and “Peaches for Mad Molly” (1988) received both Hugo and Nebula nominations for Best Novelette. His first two novels were juveniles: Jumper (1992; a playful look at teleportation) and Wildside (1996; a parallel world tale). He has also written Greenwar (1997, with Laura J. Mixon), Helm (1998) and Blind Waves (2000; a melting Antarctica threatens to drown the world).

Charles L. Grant began his writing career with “The House of Evil” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, 1968). He initially concentrated on traditional science fiction and fantasy. Between 1974 and 1980, he gained a Hugo and five Nebula Award nominations, winning the latter with “A Crowd of Shadows” (Best Short Story, 1976) and “A Glow of Candles, A Unicorn’s Eye” (Best Novelette, 1978). His early novels, The Shadow of Alpha (1976), Ascension (1977) and Legion (1979) were set in an America torn apart by plague. As the decade ended, however, he moved into horror and dark fantasy, with which he has since been primarily identified. The Hour of the Oxrun Dead (1977), in which a small Connecticut town is menaced by a Satanic cult, began his Oxrun series, which extended to eleven novels and several stories. He has written a total of nearly 60 novels, some under the pen names “Lionel Fenn”, “Simon Lake”, “Geoffrey Marsh” and “Steven Charles”. Collections of his short fiction include Tales from the Nightside (1981) and The Black Carousel (1995). He has edited more than 20 anthologies, most notably the Shadows series. In 1999 he received the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Martin H. Greenberg (not to be confused with Martin Greenberg without the “H”) is undoubtedly the most energetic and prolific anthologist in the history of science fiction. In his “day job”, he is an academic political scientist, author of such tomes as Bureaucracy and Development: A Mexican Case Study (1970). His interest in anthologizing was also originally academic, to assemble stories that would be useful supplementary reading in university courses. The first of these collections was Political Science Fiction (1974, with Patricia Warrick), which was followed by volumes specializing in such subjects as psychology, anthropology, urban studies, religious studies and criminal justice. He began editing for a wider audience in the early 1980’s. By 1995, the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction credited him with some 450 anthologies, the majority in collaboration with famous or obscure SF writers and fans. It is unlikely that anyone would be rash enough to attempt a tally today. He was Editor Guest of Honor at the 1991 World Science Fiction Convention.

Ed Greenwood lives in a farm house containing 40,000 books, not all of them written by himself. He created the Forgotten Realms setting for Dungeons & Dragons and has produced a vast quantity of fiction set in the that world. In all, he has published over 160 books and has contributed to numerous paper and computer games, among them Pools of Radiance, The Two Towers and Baldur’s Gate. His non-game-related fantasy novels include the Band of Four sequence (The Kingless Land (2000), The Vacant Throne (2001), A Dragon’s Ascension (2002), The Dragon’s Doom (2003)) and The Silent House (2004).

Eileen K. Gunn has written a small body of short fiction that includes Nebula Award winner “Coming to Terms” (2) and two Hugo Best Short Story nominees, “Stable Strategies for Middle Management” (1988) and “Computer Friendly” (1989). Her fiction is collected in Stable Strategies and Others (2004). She edited The Infinite Matrix, an on-line magazine (recently discontinued, alas) that published science fiction, reviews, essays and news about the SF field. [Updated, 3/12/06]

James Gurney is L.A. Con IV’s Artist Guest of Honor. A noted archeological illustrator, he has painted reconstructions of Etruscan, Moche and Kushite cultures for the National Geographic Society and designed the World of Dinosaurs commemorative stamp series for the U.S. Postal Service. In 1990 he created two prints, “Waterfall City” and “Dinosaur Parade”, that formed the basis of Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time (1992), Dinotopia: The World Beneath (1995) and Dinotopia: First Flight (1999). The first two volumes won Hugo Awards for Best Original Artwork. He also received two other Best Original Artwork nominations during that Hugo categories brief existence. He has been nominated twice for the Best Professional Artist Hugo Award and 13 times for Chesley Awards winning seven times. A limited edition portfolio of prints of about a dozen of his works will be available at L.A.Con IV. [Updated, 3/12/06]

Thorarinn Gunnarsson writes rousing space opera and both heroic and comic fantasy. The first is represented by The Starwolves (1988) and its sequels, Battle of the Ring (1989), Tactical Error (1991) and Dreadnought (1992). Song of the Dwarves (1988) and Revenge of the Valkyrie (1989) draw on Nordic mythology, while Make Way for Dragons (1990) and its sequels relate the misadventures of a young dragon stranded in the bizarre world of modern California. He has also written game tie-ins for TSR.

Karen Haber is a writer and anthologist. Her first story was “Madre di Dios” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, 1988), followed closely by The Mutant Season (1989, with Robert Silverberg). She continued this tale of a psionic mutant subculture in 21st Century America in a series of solo novels: Mutant Prime (1990), Mutant Star (1992) and Mutant Legacy (1993). Her other novels include Thieves’ Carnival (1990), The War Minstrels (1995), Woman Without a Shadow (1995) and Sister Blood (1996). She has edited many fiction and nonfiction anthologies, including annual science fiction and fantasy “best of the year” anthologies and such books as Meditations on Middle Earth (2001), a collection of essays on the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien (nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Related Book), Exploring the Matrix: Visions of the Cyber Future (2003) and Kong Unbound : The Cultural Impact, Pop Mythos, and Scientific Plausibility of a Cinematic Legend (2005). Another of her interests is science fiction and fantasy art, about which she writes extensively in Locus, Realms of Fantasy and other publications. Her young adult novel, Crossing Infinity, will appear later this year. [Updated, 3/12/06]

Jack C. (Jay) Haldeman II (1941–2002) published ten novels and over 100 stories, as well as poetry and articles in scientific journals. Before selling his first story (“Garden of Eden”, Fantastic, 1971), he was a prominent Washington, D.C. area SF fan who chaired seven Discons and co-chaired the 1974 World Science Fiction Convention. Much of his SF was in a light vein, and most of his novels were collaborations (with, among others, his brother Joe Haldeman, Jack Dann, Andrew J. Offutt and Harry Harrison). His “High Steel” (1982) was a Nebula Best Short Story nominee. His solo novels included Vector Analysis (1978) and The Fall of Winter (1985).

Joe Haldeman served as a combat engineer in the Vietnam War. Returning after being severely wounded, he sold his first story (“Out of Phase”) to Galaxy in 1969. “Hero” (1972) was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novella. His first novel, the non-SF War Year (1972), was based on his Vietnam experiences, but they were more fruitfully utilized in his debut SF novel The Forever War (1975), portraying interstellar soldiers who are doomed to increasing alienation from the society for which they fight. The book won the Hugo and the Nebula Awards for Best Novel. Two sequels later appeared: Forever Peace (1991; also a double Hugo and Nebula winner) and Forever Free (1999). He has a total of seven Hugo and seven Nebula Award nominations, winning with, in addition to the two Forever novels, “Tricentennial” (1976, Best Short Story Hugo), “The Hemingway Hoax” (1990, Best Novella Hugo and Nebula), “Graves” (1992, Best Short Story Nebula) and “None So Blind” (1994, Best Short Story Hugo). Among his more notable other novels are Mindbridge (1976), All My Sins Remembered (1977), Worlds Apart (1983), Worlds Enough and Time (1992) and Guardian (2002), a parallel worlds story set, more or less, in 19th Century America. Several collections of his short fiction have appeared, including Infinite Dreams (1978), Dealing in Futures (1985) and None So Blind (1996). He has also published a book of verse, Saul’s Death and Other Poems (1996), and War Stories (2005), a collection of Vietnam-inspired fiction that includes both SF and mainstream work. His latest novels are Camouflage (2004), featuring a strange artifact found seven miles beneath the sea and two immortal wanderers, and Old Twentieth (2005), a murder mystery set aboard a slower-than-light starship. He has served twice as president of the Science Fiction Writers of America and was Author Guest of Honor at the 1990 World Science Fiction Convention. [Updated, 3/12/06]

Barbara Hambly studied medieval history, then worked at a variety of mindless jobs that gave her time to write. In 1982 she sold her first novel, The Time of the Dark, which, with its sequels The Walls of Air (1982) and The Armies of Daylight (1983), tells the story of a pair of aimless California kids who are transported into a parallel world threatened by Lovecraftian (though scientifically rationalized) horrors. Her subsequent books cover a wide range of fantasy territory: high fantasy (The Witches of Mandrigyn (1984), The Dark Hand of Magic (1990), Dragonshadow (1999), Knight of the Demon Queen (2000), Dragonstar (2002)), comedy (Dragonsbane, 1986, in which a middle-aged wizard and witch who once slew a dragon resent being called upon to do so again), horror (Those Who Hunt the Night (1988) and its sequel Travelling With the Dead (1995)), contemporary fantasy (Bride of the Rat God (1994), set in Hollywood of the 1920’s, and Magic Time (2002, with M. Scott Zicree, a catastrophe novel)), feminist wish fulfillment (Sisters of the Raven (2002)) and even a sword-and-sorcery country house mystery (The Witches of Wenshar (1987)). She has also written Star Trek novels and historical mysteries (notably her Benjamin January series, whose detective is a free man of color in the ante bellum American South) and has served as president of the Science Fiction Writers of America. She edited Budayeen Nights (2003), a collection of stories by her late husband George Alec Effinger. Her latest novel is Dead Water (2004), the eighth Benjamin January mystery.

Elizabeth Hand worked for the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and at other Beltway jobs before moving to a cottage in Maine and plunging into writing. Her first story, “Prince of Flowers”, was published in 1988 and her debut novel, Winterlong, a Philip K. Dick Award nominee, in 1990. Its two sequels, Aestival Tide (1992) and Icarus Descending (1993), were followed by a feminist fantasy, Waking the Moon (1995), which won the Tiptree Award. Her later novels include Glimmering (1997), in which a magic elixir transforms a near future dystopia, Black Lightfoot (1999), a venture into horror, Mortal Love (2004), about a muse whose love inspires genius and madness, several tie-ins, such as novelizations of Twelve Monkeys and Catwoman, and historical fiction. Her short stories are collected in Last Summer at Mars Hill (1998), whose title novella (1994) won the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. Bibliomancy (2003), a novella quartet, was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award and includes two International Horror Guild winners. She has also written comic books and numerous book reviews for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The Washington Post and other outlets.

Harry Harrison entered science fiction by way of art. Working as a commercial illustrator in the 1940’s, he sold illos to SF magazines and got to know many professionals in the field. One of them, Damon Knight, bought his first story, “Rock Diver”, in 1951. In 1957 he began selling to John W. Campbell, Jr.’s Astounding, for which he created his most memorable character, the “Stainless Steel Rat” Jim DiGriz, a criminal turned ambivalent policeman. In 1960 his debut novel, Deathworld, appeared and gained a Hugo Award nomination. The next year saw The Stainless Steel Rat, the first of a dozen DiGriz novels. He has published over 50 novels in all. Among those generally regarded as his best are Bill, the Galactic Hero (1965; a parody of Heinlein, Asimov and himself), the generation starship tale Captive Universe (1969), the alternate history Tunnel Through the Deeps (1972), Make Room! Make Room! (1966; the source of the movie Soylent Green) and West of Eden (1984), with its sequels Return to Eden (1986) and Winter in Eden (1988), portraying a clash between humanity and sapient dinosaurs in the shadow of an impending Ice Age. His latest books are the Stars and Stripes series (Stars and Stripes Forever (1998), Stars and Stripes in Peril (2000), Stars and Stripes Triumphant (2001)), an alternate history in which the Union and Confederacy join hands to face an invasion by the British Empire. The most recent collection of his short fiction is 50 in 50 (2001). Readers who desire a complete list of his works can consult Harry Harrison: An Annotated Bibliography by Paul Tomlison (2002). He has also worked extensively as an editor, collaborating with Brian Aldiss on several anthologies and editing solo, among many others, The Light Fantastic: Science Fiction Classics from the Mainstream (1971) and Astounding: The John W. Campbell Memorial Anthology (1973). He was Author Guest of Honor at the 1990 World Science Fiction Convention.

David G. Hartwell has been widely influential in the science fiction field as an editor, publisher and critic. Holder of a doctorate in Comparative Medieval Literature, he published and edited The Little Magazine, a mainstream literary periodical, from 1965 through 1988. In 1988 he was a founder of The New York Review of Science Fiction, a perennial Hugo Award nominee (but not winner – thanks to it, he can claim to have lost more Hugos than anyone else in history) and has served as its reviews editor ever since. He is the proprietor of Dragon Press, which publishes the Review and occasional highly noncommercial titles. He has been an editor for Signet, Berkeley/Putnam, Gregg Press, Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster (where he was responsible for the Timescape line), Arbor House, William Morrow and Tor Books. He has edited or co-edited numerous important anthologies, including The Dark Descent (1987; winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology), The World Treasury of Science Fiction (1989), The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard Science Fiction (1994), The Hard SF Renaissance (2002), and the annual Year’s Best SF and Year’s Best Fantasy collections. He also serves as a judge of the annual Philip K. Dick Award. He has been nominated nine times for the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor, an unparalleled achievement for someone who does not edit a magazine, and received a World Fantasy Special Award in 1988. He is the author of Age of Wonders: Exploring the World of Science Fiction (1984), which deals with both literary and sociological aspects of science fiction and its fandom. [Updated, 8/1/05]

Rick Hautala is “Maine’s other horror writer”, with over 20 novels (the last few under the name “A. J. Matthews”) and 50 stories published so far. His first book was a werewolf novel, Moondeath (1980). Among his later novels are Moonwalker (1989), Night Stone (1991), which sold over a million copies thanks to a huge demand for the German edition, Little Brothers (1992), Twilight Time (1994) and Impulse (1996). A selection of his short fiction is available in Bedbugs (2000). His latest novels are Looking Glass (2004, as “A. J. Matthews”) and a pair of young adult mysteries co-authored with Christopher Golden. [Updated, 8/1/05]

Jeff Hecht is a science and technology writer specializing in fiber optics and lasers. He has published about 20 science fiction stories, most frequently in Analog, since his first, “The Princess and the P6”, appeared in 1976. His nonfiction includes Laser Pioneers (1991), Understanding Lasers (1994), City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics (1999), Introduction to Laser Technology (3rd ed., 2001) and Understanding Fiber Optics (4th ed., 2001).

Peter J. Heck wrote Waldenbooks’ SF and mystery newsletters for ten years, then was a science fiction editor at Ace Books. After leaving Ace, he embarked on a series of novels featuring Mark Twain as a detective: Death on the Mississippi (1995), A Connecticut Yankee in Criminal Court (1996), The Prince and the Prosecutor (1997), The Guilty Abroad (1999), The Mysterious Strangler (2000) and Tom’s Lawyer (2001). His work of SF interest consists of a series of collaborations with Robert Asprin: A Phule and His Money (1999), Phule Me Twice (2000) and No Phule Like an Old Phule (2004), which continue Asprin’s series about a company of inept interstellar mercenaries.

John G. Hemry is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who turned to writing after retirement from active duty. His first sale was “One Small Spin” (Analog, September 1997). His first novel, Stark’s War (2000), began a military SF series that continued in Stark’s Command (2001) and Stark’s Crusade (2002). He then embarked on what he calls his “JAG in Space” series, about an officer-lawyer in a future space navy. The first two volumes are A Just Determination (2003) and Burden of Proof (2004). The next, Rule of Evidence, is scheduled to appear in 2005.

Lea Hernandez is a comics artist who has worked for all of the major companies in the industry in almost every art-related role, including lettering, coloring, inking and drawing. She is the creator of Killer Princesses (with Gail Simone, Oni Press), Rumble Girls (Image Comics), and the steampunk graphic novels Cathedral Child (1998), Clockwork Angels (2001) and Ironclad Petal (2002). She also has worked extensively on American versions of manga and anime, such as Yuzo Takada’s 3X3 Eyes series.

Stephen F. Hickman has been a leading science fiction and fantasy illustrator since the early 1980’s, with over 350 book covers to his credit. In 1988 he published a fantasy novel, The Lemurian Stone. In 1994 he received the Best Original Artwork Hugo Award for the Space Fantasy Commemorative Stamp Booklet that he created for the U. S. Postal Service. He has received 14 Chesley Award nominations, winning five times. A selection of his work appears in The Fantasy Art of Stephen Hickman (1989). [Updated, 8/1/05]

Brian Hodge worked in a newspaper advertising department while writing his first two novels, Dark Advent (1988) and Oasis (1989). Since selling them, he has been a full-time writer, for the most part in the horror and dark fantasy vein, frequently with erotic undertones. He gained Bram Stoker Award nominations for Death Grip (Best Novel, 1992), “The Academy of the Throat” (Best Novelette, 1994), The Convulsion Factory (Best Collection, 1996) and “Madame Babylon” (Best Short Story, 1997), as well as a 1998 World Fantasy Best Novella Award nomination for “The Dripping of Sundered Wineskins”. Wild Horses (1999) was a new departure, a darkly comic blend of crime and road novel. His most recent book is a collection, Lies and Ugliness (2002).

P. C. Hodgell is the creator of a complex fantasy universe whose chronicling began with God Stalk (1982). The heroine, Jame the Talisman, is an aristocratic dancer and thief whose people have been oppressed for generations by a supernatural dark lord. The story is concerned, as the author puts it, “not only with high adventure, but also with questions of personal identity, religion, politics, honor, and arboreal drift”. The tale continues in Dark of the Moon (1985), Bones (1993), Child of Darkness (1993), Seeker’s Mask (1994) and the story collection Blood and Ivory: A Tapestry (2002).

Nina Kiriki Hoffman began writing horror fiction in the 1970’s and has gradually moved into contemporary fantasy. She is active primarily in short fiction, which has been collected in Courting Disasters and Other Strange Affinities (1991) and Time Travelers, Ghosts and Other Visitors (2003). She has gained four Nebula Award nominations, for “The Skeleton Key” (Best Novelette, 1994), “Haunted Humans” (Best Novella, 1994), “Home for Christmas” (Best Novelette, 1995) and The Silent Strength of Stones (Best Novel, 1996). Her debut solo novel, The Thread That Binds the Bones (1993) won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel. A Red Heart of Memories (1999) and Past the Size of Dreaming (2001) were World Fantasy Best Novel Award nominees. Her latest novels are A Fistful of Sky (2002) and A Stir of Bones (2003), a young adult prequel to A Red Heart of Memories.

Nancy Holder was a ballerina before she “burned out” and turned to writing. She now concentrates primarily on horror, with occasional diversions into the romance genre. She has received four Bram Stoker Awards, three for short stories and one for her collection Dead in the Water (1994). She has published over 50 novels and about 200 stories. She has recently been most active in tie-ins, particularly to Buffy the Vampire Slayer (she even wrote a Buffy diet book), Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Smallville, and books for children. Her latest adult novel is Heat (2004), a Buffy and Angel tie-in.

Tanya Huff worked as a cook in the Canadian Navy and a bookstore manager, among other jobs, before settling “in the middle of nowhere” to write full time. An early story, “And Who Is Joah?”, won an Aurora Award (the Canadian equivalent of a Hugo), and several others have been Aurora nominees. Her first novel, Child of the Grove, in which a mystical child must save a doomed land, appeared in 1988 and has been followed by nearly 20 more, ranging from traditional fantasy to military SF (Valor’s Choice (2000) and The Better Part of Valor (2002)) to supernatural mysteries (the Victoria Nelson series, beginning with Blood Price (1991)) to humor (Summon the Keeper (1998) and its sequels). Her short fiction has been collected in Stealing Magic (1999), What Ho, Magic! (1999) and Relative Magic (2003). Her latest novel is Smoke and Shadows (2004).

Elizabeth Anne Hull has taught science fiction at the college level for over 30 years and has published many reviews and critical articles discussing the field. She is a past president of the Science Fiction Research Association, a two-time co-chairman of SFRA’s annual conference and North American secretary of World SF. She has also written a few stories of her own and edited an anthology, Tales from the Planet Earth (1986, with Frederik Pohl).

Walter H. Hunt is a former computer programmer, technical writer and adventure game designer who now writes fiction full time. His first novel, The Dark Wing (2001), portrays a war between mankind and the alien zor, with the twist that the human commander believes himself to be the avatar of the enemy species’ god. The series continued in The Dark Path (2003) and The Dark Ascent (2004). It will conclude next year with The Dark Crusade.

Dean Ing served in the Air Force, worked as an engineer and earned a Ph.D. in speech, all of which have furnished background, in one way or another, for his military-oriented, but non-stereotyped SF. (He is one of the rare military SF writers to profess Kennedy liberalism. He once said that he favored a strong national defense in order to make America safe for the welfare state.) His first story was published in 1955 (“Tight Squeeze”, Analog), but he did not become active until about 20 years later, first drawing attention with “Devil You Don’t Know” (1978), a Hugo and Nebula Best Novelette nominee. His debut novel, Soft Targets (1979), is a prescient look at near-future terrorist threats. His Systemic Shock (1981), Single Combat (1983) and Wild Country (1985) are set in a paranoid, post-nuclear war United States ruled by a theocracy. His other novels include Anasazi (1980), Pulling Through (1983; a kind of fictionalized handbook to surviving catastrophes) and The Big Litters (1988). In the middle 1980’s, he completed a number of manuscripts left behind by Mack Reynolds, among them The Lagrangists (1983), The Other Time (1984), Trojan Orbit (1985) and Deathwish World (1986). His short fiction was collected in High Tension (1982) and Firefight 2000 (1987). He has also contributed novels and short stories to Larry Niven’s Man-Kzin Wars shared universe. In recent years he has concentrated on mainstream thrillers, such as Flying to Pieces (1997), The Skins of Dead Men (1998) and Loose Cannon (2000). His latest book is a collection of his Cold War survivalist tales, The Rackham Files (2004).

Alex Jablokov published his first story in 1985 (“Beneath the Shadow of Her Smile”, Asimov’s) and has since produced a moderate quantity of short fiction, much of it centered on Boston. He was one of the principal contributors to Future Boston (1994). The Breath of Suspension (1994), a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, collects some of his work. He has published five novels: Carve the Sky (1991; set in a low-tech, aesthetics-mad future), A Deeper Sea (1992; featuring bright but obnoxious dolphins), the noir near future Nimbus (1993), River of Dust (1996; a tragedy of sibling rivalry set on Mars) and Deepdrive (1998; an adventure revolving around the quest for an alien space drive).

Marie Jakober grew up in an isolated part of Alberta, where there were no schools or libraries. She studied by correspondence until ninth grade. At age 13 she won first prize in a poetry competition. Her first novel, The Mind Gods, in which the people of an oppressed planet develop psychic powers, was published in 1976, but her writing for many years after that concentrated on historical and mainstream subjects. In 1993 she turned to fantasy in High Kamilan, about the supersession of “the realm of the Goddess” by patriarchy. She has since published two more fantasy novels, The Black Chalice (2000) and Even the Stones (2004).

Janet Kagan (who is not the TV actress) sold her first story, a “Faith-of-the Month Club” ad, to Analog in 1982. Her small body of work includes the Nebula-nominated and Hugo-winning novellette “The Nutcracker Coup” (1992). Her first novel, Uhura’s Song (1985), is a Star Trek tie-in that is considered one of the best of that subgenre and was translated into German under the irresistible title Uhuraslied. Her other published novels are Hellspark (1988), whose heroine defends her planet against a corporate takeover with the help of a sentient AI and expertise in linguistics, and the comic Mirabile (1991), a set of linked stories set on a newly established colony world.

Michael Kandel is the leading English translator of Stanislaw Lem. His translations from the Lem oeuvre include The Futurological Congress, The Cyberiad, The Star Diaries, A Perfect Vacuum and His Master’s Voice. His own fiction is wryly humorous: Strange Invasion (1989) depicts alien tourists to Earth. In Between Dragons (1990) parodies fantasy-game universes. Captain Jack Zodiac (1991) is a zany portrait of post-nuclear war madness. Panda Ray (1996) is a dark comedy about mathematics and young adult adventure.

Guy Gavriel Kay was an undergraduate at the University of Manitoba when he assisted Christopher Tolkien in assembling The Silmarillion from the raw materials left behind at J. R. R. Tolkien’s death. The experience inspired him with the idea of pursuing a literary career, but practicality won out. He studied law but, instead of practicing that profession, became head writer for a radio program, The Scales of Justice, which dramatized real life trials. While working at that job, he published his first novel, The Summer Tree (1984), the initial volume of a Tolkienesque trilogy that was completed by The Wandering Fire (1986; Aurora Award winner) and The Darkest Road (1986). His subsequent books have drawn the backgrounds for their fantasy worlds from genuine history: Risorgimento Italy (Tigana (`1990; Aurora Award winner, nominee for the World Fantasy Award), the Albigensian Crusade (A Song for Arbonne (1992)), the Spanish Reconquest (The Lions of al-Rassan (1995)), Sixth Century Byzantium (Sailing to Sarantium (1998) and Lord of Emperors (2000)) and the Viking Age (The Last Light of the Sun (2004)). He has also published a collection of poems, Beyond This Dark House (2003).

Marvin Kaye published several detective novels before his first venture into SF, The Masters of Solitude (1978, with Parke Godwin), depicting the clash between science and a mutated religion in post-holocaust America. His first solo novel, The Incredible Umbrella (1979), was comic fantasy, in which the unfortunate hero is whisked via bumbershoot into Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas and other fictional worlds. It led to a sequel, The Amorous Umbrella (1981). Most of his work has been of darker hue, however. A Cold Blue Light (1983, with Parke Godwin) and Ghosts of Night and Morning (1987) are occult detective tales. Wintermind (1994, with Godwin) is a sequel to The Masters of Solitude. Fantastique (1992) is a supernatural fantasy revolving around a theatrical troupe and mimicking the structure of Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. His latest is The Last Christmas of Ebenezer Scrooge (2003), a daring sequel to Dickens’ tale. Some of his short fiction is collected in The Possession of Immanuel Wolf and Other Improbable Tales (1981). He has also edited numerous horror, ghost story and detective anthologies, such as The Vampire Sextette (2002), The Dragon Quintet (2004), The Nero Wolfe Files (2005; essays and pastiches featuring the great detective) and The Fair Folk (2005), and has written nonfiction books about the theater and magic tricks. He edits H. P. Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror, a periodical in book format. [Updated, 8/1/05]

James Patrick Kelly sold his first story, “Dea Ex Machina”, to Galaxy in 1975 and has been a full-time writer since 1977. He is a staunch advocate of the short story, and his short fiction has gained seven Hugo and eight Nebula Award nominations. “Think Like a Dinosaur” and “1016 to 1” won the Best Novelette Hugos in 1996 and 1999. Three collections of his stories have appeared: Heroines (1990), Think Life a Dinosaur and Other Stories (1997) and Strange But Not a Stranger (2002). He has written four novels: Planet of Whispers (1984; about communications from aliens whose consciousness differs from humanity’s), Freedom Beach (1985, with John Kessel), Look into the Sun (1989, sequel to Planet of Whispers) and Wildlife (1994; examining the impact of artificial intelligence across three generations). He has a strong interest in electronic publishing, which he sees as a counter to the “disposable” nature of contemporary literature, and writes the “On the Net” column for Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. In 2004 he was appointed chairman of the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. His latest books are Burn, a short novel about an attempt to recreate Thoreau’s Walden on another world, and the forthcoming Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology, which he edited with John Kessel. [Updated, 3/12/06]

John Kessel is an English professor whose SF work often borrows elements and structures from famous works of literature. His Nebula-winning novella “Another Orphan” was, for instance, based on Moby Dick. His first published story was “The Silver Man” (Galileo, 1978). He quickly attracted notice and has gained three Hugo and seven Nebula nominations. His short fiction is collected in Meeting in Infinity (1992) and The Pure Product (1997). His first novel, Freedom Beach (1985, with James Patrick Kelly), may have lost some readers in its profusion of literary references. His solo effort, Good News from Outer Space (1989), a whirlwind tour through the near future, was more approachable. His third and latest novel is Corrupting Dr. Nice (1997), featuring a father-daughter team of time traveling swindlers.

Tom Kidd dropped out of college after his second year and moved to New York City, with the plan of either sinking or swimming as an artist. He swam. He has painted several hundred book covers (and prides himself on actually reading the book – assuming that it has yet been written, of course – before painting). He has also designed figurines and worked on projects for movie studios and theme parks. His art is on display at, among other venues, The Delaware Art Museum, The Society of Illustrators, The Canton Museum of Art, and The NASA Future Art Expedition. His awards include six Chesleys, including the 2003 Award for Artistic Achievement. He was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist in 1985, 1987, 1988 and 1990. Examples of his work can be found in The Tom Kidd Sketchbook (1994).

James Killus is an atmospheric scientist with numerous research papers to his credit. Among other professional achievements, he played a leading role in the formulation of the Urban Airshed Model for gauging the effects of pollution on human health. A self-described “dilettante”, he has written two novels, Book of Shadows (1983) and SunSmoke (1985; an ecological mystery recently republished in electronic format with a new afterword by the author), about 15 short stories and the clues for the computer game Where in Space is Carmen Sandiego?

Donald Kingsbury taught mathematics at McGill University for 30 years, writing science fiction on the side. His first story, “Ghost Town”, appeared in Astounding in 1952, but he didn’t publish his second until “Shipwright” in 1978. “The Moon Goddess and the Son” (1979, expanded into a novel in 1987), about a 21st Century romance between a runaway girl and the scion of a powerful family, gained a nomination for the Best Novella Hugo Award. His debut novel, Courtship Rite (1982), portraying life on a deadly world where strict adherence to tradition is essential to human survival, was likewise a Hugo nominee. He has published a few further stories set in the same universe, but his recent work has been in other areas: two novels in the Man-Kzin Wars shared universe (The Survivor (1991), The Heroic Myth of Lt. Nora Argamentine (1994)) and Psychohistorical Crisis (2001), a huge sequel to Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy.

Tess Kissinger specializes in dinosaur illustration. She is co-proprietor of the Walters & Kissinger Studio, which produces dinosaur images and sculptures for books, magazine articles, museum exhibits, television shows and motion pictures. Her work is on display at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, the Delaware Museum of Natural History and other museums. She has curated exhibits devoted to dinosaur art at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Dinofest, and one on Space Age art and artifacts at the Bruce Museum. She is also a long-time activist in the area of copyright protection for artists.

Richard A. Knaak published his first story, “Wayward Children”, in TSR’s Dragonlance Tales in 1987. He wrote six Dragonlance novels, beginning with The Legend from Huma (1988), then established his own series, Dragonrealm, set in a land in which dragons of different colors rule different terrains. The seven volumes of the main sequence began with Firedrake (1989) and continued through The Horse King (1997). A subsidiary three-volume series (The Shrouded Realm (1991), Children of the Drake (1991), Dragon Tome (1992)) formed a prequel, telling how the odd conditions of the Dragonrealm came into being. In 1993 he broke from his high fantasy past with King of the Grey, the first of three contemporary fantasies set in Chicago. It was followed by Frostwing (1995) and Dutchman (1996). Outside his series are The Janus Mask (1995), in which a dead wizard seeks to overthrow an evil king, and Ruby Flames (1999), set in a world where a scientific experiment gone wrong makes magic possible. In recent years he has concentrated on tie-ins based on the Warcraft and Diablo computer games.

Damon Knight (1922–2002) was the author of many classic SF stories, a major editor, the first president of the Science Fiction Writers of America, the first critic to apply rigorous critical standards to the genre, and the founder of the Clarion SF and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop, the field’s most successful teaching program. As a young fan in the early 1940’s, he was active in New York City’s Futurian Society, whose history he candidly chronicled in The Futurians (1977). He made his first sale, “Resilence”, to Stirring Science Stories in 1941. For many years, he wrote only occasional fiction and was best known for his thoughtful, sometimes acerbic book reviews. His demolition of the magazine serialization of A. E. van Vogt’s The World of Null-A (1948) led the author to make major revisions before publishing the book version. In Search of Wonder (1956) collects much of his criticism. He received the Best Book Reviewer Hugo Award in 1956, the only year in which it was given. Unfortunately, he quit reviewing in 1960, after a quarrel with an editor who refused to run a negative review of a popular author. In the 1950’s he increased his short fiction output, penning some of his most admired works: “To Serve Man” (1950), “Four in One” (1953), “Babel II” (1953), “The Country of the Kind” (1955) and “Stranger Station” (1956). Several collections have appeared, among them Far Out (1961), Off Center (1965) and Rule Golden (1979). His first novel, the dystopian Hell’s Pavement, appeared in 1955. His novels are generally considered inferior to his shorter works, but several are highly regarded, including The People Maker (1959), The World and Thorinn (1981), CV (1985), The Observers (1988), A Reasonable World (1991), Why Do Birds (1992) and his swan song, Humpty Dumpty: An Oval (1996). In 1966 he began editing the annual Orbit anthology of original stories, the longest running (21 years) and most influential series of its type. He and his wife Kate Wilhelm were Professional Guests of Honor at the 1980 World Science Fiction Convention.

Karl and Janet Kofoed are an artistic husband and wife team. Karl, the proprietor of Kofoed Design, has scores of SF book covers and interior illustrations to his credit. His “The Galactic Geographic” is a regular feature of Heavy Metal magazine. The Galactic Geographic Annual 3003 (2003) is a book-length version. He has published one novel, Deep Ice (2002), centered on a terrorist plot to plant nuclear bombs in the Antarctic ice shelf. Janet is a popular jewelry designer who often exhibits at science fiction conventions.

Victor Koman wrote his first story, “When It Worked” (1976) for New Libertarian Notes, the world’s first libertarian fanzine. His first three books, Saucer Sluts (1980) and two Spaceways novels co-written with Andrew J. Offutt, were jeux d’esprit. He had difficulty finding a publisher for The Jehovah Contract, which involves a contract to assassinate God, so it first appeared in Bavaria, in German translation, in 1985. The English version, finally published in 1987, won the Prometheus Award (for SF with libertarian themes), as did Solomon’s Knife (1989; a medical techo-thriller) and Kings of the High Frontier (1997). He is the only three-time Prometheus winner. His most recent novels are The Microbiotic Menace (1999; a pulp parody billed as the first of the Captain Anger series) and Death’s Dimensions: A Psychotic Space Opera (1999).

Eric Kotani is the pen name of astrophysicist Yoji Kondo. His scientific credits include a NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement. He has served as editor of Comments on Astrophysics and President of the International Astronautical Union Commission on Astronomy from Space. His fiction is in a lighter vein, consisting of SF adventures with an underlying basis in serious scientific speculation. He collaborated with John Maddox Roberts on the near future Act of God series (Act of God (1985), The Island Worlds (1987), Between the Stars (1988)) and Delta Pavonis (1990), and with Roger MacBride Allen on Supernova (1991), which depicts the work of scientists who discover that a nearby star is on the verge of a catastrophic explosion, and Legacy of Prometheus (2000), centered on the energy crisis and a private space venture. On his own, he wrote Death of a Neutron Star (1999), a Star Trek: Voyager tie-in. Under his real name he edited Interstellar Travel and Multi-Generational Space Ships (2003), a collection of papers presented at a symposium of the American Association of the Advancement of Science.

Nancy Kress says that she took up writing because she was no good at quilting or embroidery. Her first sale was to Galaxy in 1976 (“The Earth Dwellers”). Her first three novels, The Prince of Morning Bells (1981), The Golden Grove (1984) and The White Pipes (1985), were fantasies that attracted attention for their unconventional approach to familiar themes. Among her short stories, “Trinity” (1984) was a Nebula Best Novella nominee, and “Out of All Them Bright Stars” won the Best Short Story Nebula in 1985. Her subsequent work has been primarily science fiction, starting with An Alien Light (1988). In 1990 she left her advertising agency job to write full time and began turning out an impressive number of award-winning tales. She has gained nine Hugo and eight Nebula Award nominations. “Beggars in Spain” (1991), about the travails of humans genetically engineered to have no need of sleep, won the Hugo and Nebula Best Novella Awards, and “Flowers of Aulit Prison” took the Best Novelette Nebula in 1997. Expanded into a novel of the same title, Beggars in Spain had two sequels: Beggars and Choosers (1994) and Beggars Ride (1996). It was followed by the Probability series (Probability Moon (2000), Probability Sun (2001), Probability Space (2002)). Crossfire (2003) and Crucible (2004) began a new series that explores how alien species can get along without mutual understanding.

Romas Kukalis has been painting SF book covers since approximately 1981 and has a hundred or so to his credit. He has also illustrated cards for Magic: The Gathering. Unlike many artists, he is rather self-effacing, without even a Web site to puff his wares. An admirer says of this work, “His appealing style, innocent humor, strong and well-balanced compositions, and clean, saturated colors are particularly well suited to conveying well-delineated characters and a ‘sense of wonder’ – whether the subject matter is dragons and wizards or futuristic scenes.”

David A. Kyle has been active in SF fandom since 1933. He chaired the 1956 World Science Fiction Convention and was Fan Guest of Honor at the 1983 Worldcon. He became administrator of the First Fandom Big Heart Award, of which he is a past recipient, at the 2000 Worldcon. In 1950 he co-founded Gnome Press, one the most successful semi-professional SF publishers, overseeing the production side of its operations during its early years. He was also active as an SF illustrator. At long intervals, he sold stories (the earliest being “Golden Nemesis”, Stirring Science Stories, 1941), but his “professional” career came much later. In the 1970’s, while living in Britain, he wrote the texts for A Pictorial History of Science Fiction (1976) and The Illustrated Book of Science Fiction Ideas and Dreams (1977), both large format, lavishly illustrated volumes. A few years later, he turned to fiction, writing three novels set in E. E. Smith’s Lensman milieu: The Dragon Lensman (1980), Lensman from Rigel (1982) and Z-Lensman (1983).