Stromata
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Pro Photo Gallery Captions (S-Z)
Note: Except as otherwise indicated, the information in these captions is current as of the opening of Noreascon 4, September 2004.
Fred Saberhagen has been chronicling the adventures of Berserkers, swords, time travelers, vampires and gods for over 40 years. His first story was “Volume PAA-PYX” (Galaxy, 1961) and his first novel The Golden People (1964). Not long after, he became an editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica and wrote its first entry on “Science Fiction”. In 1967 came Berserker, a collection of linked stories that initiated his famous and still continuing account of the struggle between mankind and life-hating, star-roving robots, which now spans fifteen volumes. In 1968 he embarked on a second series, The Empire of the East, set in a post-scientific, post-holocaust world (the villain of the opening trilogy is a sentient nuclear weapon) that contrasts sharply with the Berserkers’ super-science. The same universe was the setting of the three Books of Swords and eight Books of Lost Swords. A third series, starting with The Dracula Tape (1975) and now in its tenth volume (A Coldness in the Blood (2002)), retells the life of the famous vampire from his own point of view. Finally, The Books of the Gods series, which retells Greek and Germanic myths in naturalistic terms, has reached its fifth volume, Gods of Fire and Thunder (2002). In all, he has published over 60 novels and shows little sign of slowing down. Recent additions to his oeuvre are Berserker Prime (2003) and Rogue Berserker (2005). He was Author Guest of Honor at the 2005 NASFiC. [Updated, 9/1/05]
Steve Saffel is an executive editor with Del Rey Books, where he is responsible for acquiring and editing science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, horror and various media tie-ins. He helped organize science fiction conventions while in college, earned a degree from the West Virginia University School of Journalism and worked for the American Red Cross and Marvel Comics before joining Del Rey in 1995.
Don Sakers began publishing with “Gamester” (Questar, 1981). His first novel, The Leaves of October (1988), a combination of two Analog novellas, portrayed sapient trees who help mankind cope with an evolutionary crisis. He edited a collection of stories based on a famous filk song, Carmen Miranda’s Ghost Is Haunting Space Station Three (1990), but his SF activity then waned. He returned to the field with Dance for the Ivory Madonna (2002), followed by A Voice in Every Wind (2003), Curse of the Zwilling (2003), which has been described as “Hogwarts meets Buffy”, and The SF Book of Days (2004), an almanac of dates on which famous science fictional events took place (e. g., on February 11, 1868, the Nautilus entered the Mediterranean).
Jessica Amanda Salmonson broke into SF&F in 1973 as founder and editor of The Literary Magazine of Fantasy and Terror, which published her early stories and essays. In 1979 she edited the anthology Amazons!, which won a World Fantasy Award. As an editor, she is noted for her scholarship and variety of interests. She has given special attention to 19th and early 20th Century supernatural fiction, putting together collections devoted to the work of Hildegarde Hawthorne (Nathaniel’s granddaughter), Fitz-James O’Brien, Anna Nicholas, Vincent O’Sullivan, Mary Heaton Vorse and Alice Brown, as well as What Did Miss Darrington See?: An Anthology of Feminist Supernatural Fiction (1989), Wife or Spinster: Short Stories by 19th Century American Women (1991) and others. She has also been a prolific writer of heroic fantasy and horror. In the former vein, she is best known for the Tome Gozen series, set in a fabulous medieval Japan and featuring a woman samurai. The latest volume is Disfavored Hero (1999). She has published 13 collections of short stories, most of them produced in very limited editions. The latest is The Deep Museum: Ghost Stories of a Melancholic (2003). Her other work includes several volumes of poetry and The Encyclopedia of Amazons: Women Warriors from Antiquity to the Modern Era (1991).
Warren M. Salomon is an attorney who has never quite found the time to fulfill his auctorial aspirations. Still, he has gone further than most of us. During the 1980’s, he published a trilogy of time travel tales in Asimov’s, one story in Amazing and several articles in Analog. Among the latter was “The Economics of Interstellar Commerce” (1989), which was picked by the magazine’s readers as the best non-fiction article of the year.
Kathy Sanders is one of fandom’s best known costumers, having won major awards at more than a dozen Worldcons. She was Masquerade Director for the 1990 NASFiC, the 1996 World Science Fiction Convention and the 1999 NASFiC, and has twice chaired Costume Con, the annual SF&F costumers’ convention.
Robert J. Sawyer made his first SF sale, “If I’m Here, Imagine Where They Sent My Luggage” (1981) to, of all markets, The Village Voice but concentrated on nonfiction, with occasional short jaunts into SF, until 1988, when he published Golden Fleece, a murder mystery set on a starship, with strong influences from Greek mythology. His next three novels, the trilogy Far-Seer (1992), Fossil Hunter (1993) and Foreigner (1994), reflected his interest in paleontology, which reappears in many of his other works. The Terminal Experiment (1995), winner of the Best Novel Nebula and nominee for the Hugo, established him as one of the leading lights of the current generation of SF authors. Six of his subsequent novels and three of his short stories have been Hugo nominees. Hominids (2002), the first volume of the Neanderthal Parallax trilogy, won the Hugo Award for Best Novel, and Humans, the second volume, was nominated. Japanese translations of three of his novels (End of an Era (1994), Frameshift (1997) and Illegal Alien (1997)) won Seiun (Japanese Hugo) Awards in 1996, 2000 and 2003, respectively. Translations into French and Spanish have won Le Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire and the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya's Science Fiction Award. He is also a eight-time winner of the Aurora Award for Canadian science fiction, a six-time winner of the Homer Best Novel Award and a winner of the Crime Writers of Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award. Two collections of his short fiction have been published: Interations (2002) and Relativity (2004), which won an Aurora Award. His latest novel is Mindscan (2005), which deals with the consequences of “uploading” human minds to immortal robot bodies. [Updated, 8/1/05]
Elizabeth Ann Scarborough began her career with the comic fantasy Song of Sorcery (1982) and continued in a relatively light vein until The Healer’s War (1988), an entirely different sort of book. Set during the Vietnam War, in which the author served as a nurse, it won the Nebula Award for Best Novel. She has published about 20 solo novels and several more (the Acorna and Power Lines series) in collaboration with Anne McCaffrey. The most recent Scarborough-McCaffrey volume is Acorna’s Triumph (2004). Changelings, beginning a new series, will appear in the near future. As she has progressed, her work has become increasingly difficult to classify neatly as traditional fantasy. Nothing Sacred (1991) and Last Refuge (1992) are set in a futuristic Tibet with strong touches of magic realism, while The Godmother (1994) and its sequels blend fairy tales with urban fantasy. Her latest solo novels are the comedic Channeling Cleopatra (2002) and its sequel Cleopatra 7.2 (2004), in which the famous Egyptian queen’s DNA is utilized in a modern cloning experiment. Several of her stories have been collected in Scarborough Fair and Other Stories (2003). [Updated, 8/1/05]
Lawrence Schimel co-edited the American Vampire series of anthologies, to which he contributed several stories. He also co-edited, with Martin H. Greenberg, the original anthologies Tarot Fantastic (1997), The Fortune Teller (1998) and Camelot Fantastic (1998).
Stanley Schmidt gave up teaching physics to become editor of Analog in 1978 and has held the position ever since, gaining 25 consecutive Best Professional Editor Hugo Award nominations. Before taking the magazine’s helm, he had spent a decade as an SF writer (his first sale, in 1968, was to Analog, natch), publishing three novels, Newton and the Quasi-Apple (1975), The Sins of the Fathers (1976) and Lifeboat Earth (1978), all notable for their carefully developed scientific background. Though his editorial duties limit the time available for writing, he recently published a new novel, Argonaut (2001), a fiction collection, Generation Gap, and Other Stories (2002) and a selection of his Analog editorials, Which Way to the Future? (2001). His novelettes “Good Intentions” and “Generation Gap” were Nebula Award nominees in 1999 and 2000. He has edited several anthologies and written two books on how to write SF, plus (with Ben Bova) Islands in the Sky: Bold New Ideas for Colonizing Space (1996). He was a Guest of Honor at the 1998 World Science Fiction Convention. [Updated, 8/1/05]
Lawrence Schoen has a Ph.D. in psychology and was a college professor for ten years, but he now devotes most of his time to the Klingon Language Institute, which he founded in 1992, and to writing science fiction. He has published more than 40 stories and poems and The Klingon Hamlet (2000), a parallel-text translation of the English masterpiece into Klingon (or perhaps, as the Klingons insist, vice versa).
Julius Schwartz (1915–2004) joined with his lifelong friend Mort Weisinger in 1932 to publish the first SF fanzines, The Time Traveller and Science Fiction Digest (later Fantasy Magazine). In 1934 the pair founded Solar Sales Service, the first literary agency to specialize in science fiction. Schwartz become sole principal in 1936, serving such clients as Edmond Hamilton, Stanley G. Weinbaum, John Taine, Otto and Earl Binder, Ralph Milne Farley, David H. Keller, Henry Kuttner, H. P. Lovecraft, Manley Wade Wellman, Alfred Bester, Leigh Brackett and Ray Bradbury. In February 1944, the Army rejected him for poor vision. Needing a job, he took up Alfred Bester’s suggestion that he apply for the job of editor of All-American Comics, despite the fact that he had never read a comic book in his life. He bought three on the way to the interview, read them on the subway and was hired. He found himself in charge of titles ranging from Strange Adventures and Mystery in Space to Rex the Wonder Dog. In 1956, after All-American had been acquired by DC Comics, he began reviving and refurbishing many of the “Golden Age” superheroes. He is most closely identified with Superman and Batman but also edited The Flash, Green Lantern, The Atom and others. He was in charge of DC’s graphic novel adaptations of famous SF works, among them Robert Silverberg’s Nightwings, Pohl and Kornbluth’s Merchants of Venus, Larry Niven’s The Magic Goes Away and George R. R. Martin’s The Sandkings. He was inducted into the First Fandom Hall of Fame in 1986.
Darrell Schweitzer is a critic, writer and editor. He began selling fiction with “Come to Mother” (Weirdbook #4, 1971), the first of over 200 stories, but initially received greater attention as a literary critic. His numerous critical studies include Discovering Classic Horror Fiction (1975), The Dream Quest of H. P. Lovecraft (1978), Pathways to Elfland: The Writings of Lord Dunsany (1989), and Speaking of the Fantastic (2002). After working as an assistant editor at Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and Amazing, he became co-editor of the revived Weird Tales, which won a World Fantasy Award in 1992, and of the interview series SF Voices. He has edited or co-edited half a dozen anthologies and new editions of classic fantasy works by Lord Dunsany, Ann Radcliffe, John Polidori and others. He has written three fantasy novels, The Shattered Goddess (1982), The White Isle (1988) and The Mask of the Sorcerer (1995), which was a British Fantasy Society Best Novel nominee. Among the collections of his short fiction are We Are All Legends (1981; linked stories set in the aftermath of a devastating plague), Transients, and Other Disquieting Stories (1993) and Refugees from an Imaginary Country (1999). His verse is gathered in Groping Toward the Light: Poems for Midnight and After (2000). His most recent book is The Thomas Ligotti Reader: Essays and Explorations (2003).
George H. Scithers is an outstanding example of pro/fan versatility. A career military officer, he founded Amra, one of the most famous of all fanzines, in 1959, chaired the 1963 World Science Fiction Convention and won Best Fanzine Hugos in 1964 and 1968. In 1969 he began his professional career with “Faithful Messenger”. He founded Owlswick Press in 1973, and under that imprint published, among others, his own To Serve Man (1976, an SF-themed cookbook), L. Sprague and Catherine Crook deCamp’s Science Fiction Handbook, Revised (1975), Teaching Science Fiction by Jack Williamson (1980), Adventures in Unhistory by Avram Davidson (1993) and many more. In 1977, he became the first editor of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, a position that he held until 1982. During that time, he won two Best Professional Editor Hugo Awards and made IASFM into what was widely regarded as the leading periodical in the field. He left to become editor of Amazing and later was co-editor of the revived Weird Tales, winner of a World Fantasy Award in 1992. He has also been a literary agent, written about how to write (On Writing Science Fiction: The Editors Strike Back! (1981) and Constructing Scientifiction and Fantasy (1982)) and edited several anthologies.
Melissa Scott has written over 20 science fiction novels, starting with The Game Beyond (1984). She followed up with the Silence Leigh series (Five-Twelfths of Heaven (1985), Silence in Solitude (1986), The Empress of Earth (1987)), about an aspiring space pilot, and won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1986. Her most recent books are The Jazz (2000) and Point of Dreams (2001, with Lisa A. Barnett).
Arthur Sellers was a story editor and writer for the Max Headroom television series and has written for Star Trek: The Next Generation, Beast Wars, Earth 2, She-Wolf of London, Space Precinct and other shows. His movie credits include Modern Problems and The Glass Boy.
Carol Severance wrote a series of four novels, Reefsong (1991; winner of the Compton Crook Best First Novel Award), Demon Drums (1992), Storm Caller (1993) and Sorcerous Sea (1993), that blended science fiction, fantasy and Hawaiian legend. The background came from her experience as a Peace Corps volunteer and anthropological field worker in Micronesia, combined with her long-time residence on Hawaii’s Big Island, where she was a school teacher. In 2002, she and her husband moved to Shanghai, where they teach English.
Hannah M. G. Shapero is an artist and illustrator specializing in science fiction, fantasy and architectural art. She has painted book covers for Baen, DAW, Tor and other SF publishers and done interior work for many magazines. She received a Chesley Award nomination for Best Unpublished Color Art in 1994. Working as Pyrachantha Studios, she accepts private commissions and creates art inspired by Roman Catholic, Western Esoteric and Zoroastrian spiritual traditions. Her scholarly specialty is the history and modern practice of Zoroastrianism.
Barclay Shaw has been a science fiction artist since 1978. His career began with a commission to paint covers for 16 Harlan Ellison titles, and he has since been responsible for the cover art of over 500 books and magazines. He has five times been nominated for the Best Professional Artist Hugo Award and has received four Chesley Award nominations, winning the award for Best Three-Dimensional Art in 1995. In addition to paint, he works with sculpture and computer-generated imagery. His oeuvre is distinguished for its eclectic style, surrealistic overtones and crystalline rendering. A selection appears in Electric Dreams: The Art of Barclay Shaw (1995).
Charles Sheffield (1935–2002) was a working physicist, author of over 100 technical papers and many popular science articles, as well as a writer of science fiction with a thorough grounding in science and an enthusiastic approach to a complex universe. He started his SF career with “What Song the Sirens Sang” (Galaxy, 1977) and Sight of Proteus (1978). His second novel, The Web Between the Stars (1979), invented the sky-hook space elevator, coincidentally at the same time that Arthur C. Clarke devised the same concept for The Fountains of Paradise. His story “Georgia on My Mind” (1993) won the Nebula and Hugo Best Novelette Awards. Among his other noteworthy works are Between the Strokes of Night (1985), Cold As Ice (1992), Brother to Dragons (1992; winner of the John W. Campbell Memorial Award) and The Amazing Dr. Darwin (2002; about Charles Darwin’s father Erasmus). He served as president of the American Astronautical Society and the Science Fiction Writers of America and was Toastmaster of the 1998 World Science Fiction Convention.
Josepha Sherman is a folklore expert who writes fantasy, science fiction and children’s books. Her first novel, The Shining Falcon (1989), a romance drawing on Slavic folk tales, won the Compton Crook Award. She has written half a dozen further novels based on Slavic and Celtic themes, plus tie-ins to Star Trek, Highlander and Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. She has edited a number of folklore collections, including A Sampler of Jewish-American Folklore (1992), Rachel the Clever and Other Jewish Folk Tales (1993) and Told Tales: Nine Folk Tales from Around the World (1999). Also in the folklore vein, but more unusual, is Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts: The Subversive Folklore of Childhood (1995). Her sixty-plus non-SF&F books cover topics ranging from the history of the Internet to rodeos.
Will Shetterly writes novels, screenplays, short fiction and comic books. His debut novel, Cats Have No Lord, which explains the metaphysical basis for feline autonomy, appeared in 1985. His personal favorite among his novels is the semi-autobiographical, magic realist Dogland (1997). His latest is Chimera (2000), a hard-boiled SF mystery. With Emma Bull, he was co-proprietor of SteelDragon Press and co-edited the Liavek shared world anthology series, one volume of which, Liavek: The Players of Luck, was a 1987 World Fantasy Award nominee for Best Collection. Some of his short fiction is gathered in Double Feature (1994, also containing stories by Emma Bull). He once ran for governor of Minnesota on the Grassroots Party ticket and has written screenplays (with Emma Bull), some of which are under option but none yet produced.
Takumi Shibano is generally recognized as the Founding Father of Japanese science fiction fandom. First won over to the genre by pre-war Japanese scientific adventure stories and H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, he co-founded the first Japanese SF club, Kagaku Sosaku (“Science Fiction Group”), and its fanzine Uchujin (“Cosmic Ray”) in 1957. In 1962, he was chairman of the first science fiction convention in Japan and chaired four of the first six Japanese national conventions. He received the Japanese Fandom Award in 1965. In 1966 he became the first chairman of the Federation of SF Fan Groups of Japan. His contributions to promoting science fiction went beyond fanac, however. He wrote several juvenile SF novels under the pen name “Rei Kozumi” and became one of the leading translators of English works into Japanese. His versions of Larry Niven’s Ringworld and “Inconstant Moon” won Seiun (Japanese Hugo) Awards. He also spread word of his country’s fandom to the United States, writing the first English language article about Japanese SF, for If in 1968. In the same year, American fans organized a one-time Trans-Oceanic Fan Fund to bring him and his wife Sachiko to the 1968 World Science Fiction Convention. He received a Special Committee Award at the 1993 Worldcon, and he and Sachiko were the 1996 Worldcon’s Fan Guests of Honor. In 1987 First Fandom presented him with the E. E. Evans Big Heart Award. He is a familiar figure at Worldcon Awards ceremonies, where he presided for over 20 years at the presentation of the Seiun Awards for translations of English-language writings in Japanese.
Lewis Shiner writes both science fiction and mystery stories. His novels Frontera (1984) and Deserted Cities of the Heart (1988) were Nebula Award nominees, and Glimpses (1994) won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. Four volumes of his collected short fiction have appeared, most recently Love in Vain (2001). He also edited an anthology, When the Music’s Over (1991).
Susan Shwartz holds a doctorate in Medieval English Literature, which may not be unconnected with the strong historical element in her tales of fantasy. Her first story in the SF&F field was “The Fires of Her Vengeance” in Miriam Zimmer Bradley’s anthology The Keeper’s Price (1979). After publishing a collaborative SF novel White Wing (1985) under a pseudonym, she embarked on her Heirs of Byzantium series, in which alternate history mingles with magic. She has published 15 novels in all, including two with Andre Norton (Imperial Lady: A Fantasy of Han China (1989) and Empire of the Eagle (1993)), The Grail of Hearts (1992; approaching the Arthurian legends from an unexpected point of view) and three Star Trek novels with Josepha Sherman. Her short fiction has gained two Hugo and five Nebula Award nominations. Much of that work is collected in Suppose They Gave a Peace and Other Stories (2002). She edited two Sisters in Fantasy anthologies, featuring stories by women writers, and two other collections. A new novel, Hostile Takeover, will appear later this year.
Robert Silverberg can almost be regarded as two different authors: the early one astonishingly prolific, the later renowned for his creative artistry. After an active career in fandom (for which he won a 1951 Retro Hugo Award in 2001), he became a pro with “Gorgon Planet” (1954) and the juvenile Revolt on Alpha C (1955). He won the Hugo Award for Most Promising New Writer in 1956. During the rest of the decade and the early sixties, he poured out millions of words under his own name and more than 25 pen and house names, becoming one of the most popular writers in the field. Among his best remembered novels from this period are Master of Life and Death (1957), Invaders from Earth (1958) and Recalled to Life (1958). This period came to an end when he startled the SF world by announcing that he had made as much money as he needed and was now going to slow down and write the stories that he really wanted to write. He quickly proved that he meant it, bringing forth classics like Thorns (1967), “Hawksbill Station” (1967), “Nightwings” (1968), Dying Inside (1972) and Shadrach in the Furnace (1976). He won Best Novella Hugos for “Nightwings” (1969) and “Gilgamesh in the Outback” (1987) and Best Novelette in 1990 with “Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another”. His Nebula winners are “Passengers” (1969), “Good News from the Vatican” (1971), A Time of Changes (1971), “Born With the Dead” (1974) and “Sailing to Byzantium” (1985). He has edited more than 60 anthologies, including the New Dimensions series and the later volumes of the Universe series. He is a past president of the Science Fiction Writers of America. He was a founder of the Cordwainer Smith Award, intended to bring attention to neglected classics. In 2000 he received the First Fandom Big Heart Award. And he is still writing, his latest being Roma Eterna (2003). A collection of his short fiction, Phases of the Moon: Stories of Six Decades, appeared this year. He was Author Guest of Honor at the 1970 World Science Fiction Convention and was Toastmaster of the 1968, 1971, 1977 and 1980 Worldcons.
Janna Silverstein is a senior editor at WizKids Games, which produces “collectible miniatures games” set in science fiction and fantasy universes such as Mage Knight, MechWarrior and Shadowrun. She is the author of a children’s book, Close Encounters With Aliens (2002), co-edited Full Spectrum 5 (1995), and has published a number of SF short stories, poems and book reviews.
Donald Simpson is a comics artist who first gained attention in 1984 with the limited run Megaton Man, a parody of the superhero genre. He later enlarged his parodic universe with Bizarre Heroes, and he has other credits with both major and underground comics publishers. In his spare time, he creates art in a variety of media. He once combined “Visible Man” and “Visible Horse” kits to create a “Visible Centaur”.
Mike Sirota wrote Bicycling Through Time and Space (1991), The Ultimate Bike Path (1992) and The Twenty-Second Gear (1993), regarded by some as a worthy rival to Douglas Adams in the comic SF field. His other 16 novels include the dark fantasies Snow Shadows (1990) and The Well (1991, republished this year), and the high fantasy Reglathium series. He works professionally as a journalist and operates a consultation/editing service for aspiring writers.
Dave Smeds gave up a life of organic farming to become a writer. His first story (“Dragon Touched” in Dragons of Light) appeared in 1980, but he published only sporadically until the mid-1980’s. Since then he has produced half a dozen SF&F novels and over 100 short stories, as well as work in other genres (such as a biography of Chuck Norris for young adults). His “Short Timer” (1994) was a Nebula Best Short Story nominee. His stories include science fiction, fantasy and dark fantasy, often with backgrounds drawn from regions like Vietnam (Piper in the Night (2001)) and Africa (“Termites” (1988)). He also makes use of his karate expertise in tales such as “Fearless” (1996), featuring virtual reality martial arts matches. Some of his short stories are collected in Embracing the Starlight (2002).
Dean Wesley Smith founded Pulphouse Publishing in 1988, initially to produce Pulphouse, a quarterly hardbound magazine. The zine was such a success (winning the World Fantasy Special Award in 1989 and garnering three Best Semiprozine Hugo Award nominations) that the company added Author’s Choice Monthly, a couple of smaller periodicals and a notable line of books and chapbooks. Smith wound it up in 1996 and turned to full-time writing. His first novel, Laying the Music to Rest (1989), was a Bram Stoker Award nominee, and “In the Shade of the Slowboat Man” (1996) was nominated for the Best Short Story Nebula. He gained a Best Non-Fiction Book Hugo nomination for The Professional Writer’s Guide to Writing Professionally (1991, with Kristine Kathryn Rusch). He has published about 70 novels, many of them media tie-ins, including books based on Star Trek, X-Men, Men in Black and Final Fantasy. He edits the annual Strange New Worlds anthology of stories submitted to the Star Trek writing competition.
Melinda Snodgrass is a former lawyer who, now reformed, writes for Hollywood and has published half a dozen novels. She worked as executive script consultant for the first two seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation and has written for The Outer Limits and other shows. Her first novel was a Star Trek adaptation, The Tears of the Singers (1984). She then published an SF trilogy (Circuit (1986), Circuit Breaker (1987), Final Circuit (1988)) centering on the efforts of space colonists to gain freedom from Earthbound bureaucracy. The best known of her other books is the fantasy Queen’s Gambit Declined (1989). She edited an anthology of stories set in her native New Mexico and assisted in editing the Wild Cards series, to which she has contributed stories.
Martha Soukup comes from one of Chicago’s leading fannish families, an upbringing that led her naturally into writing. Her first published work was “Dress Rehearsal” (Universe 16, 1986), which was followed by a succession of stories whose surface clarity masks their probing of deeper issues. She has gained five Nebula and four Hugo Award nominations, winning the 1994 Nebula for Best Short Story with “A Defense of Social Contracts”. Unlike almost everybody else, she writes only short fiction, which has been collected in Rosemary’s Brain: And Other Tales of Wonder (1992) and Arbitrary Placement of Walls (1997).
Bud Sparhawk is a former Air Force intelligence officer, now turned Beltway bandit, who writes in the portion of his free time that isn’t devoted to sailing. A science fiction fan ever since he came across a copy of Astounding on a drugstore rack in 1951, he sold his first story to Analog in 1976 (“The Tompkins Battery Case”), but, after one further sale, put writing on hold for 15 years while he established himself as an information systems consultant. Since returning to fiction in 1992, he has published about 50 stories. “Primrose and Thorn” (1996) and “Magic’s Price” (2001) were Nebula Award Best Novella nominees. His fiction has appeared in two print collections: Dancing With Dragons (2001) and Sam Boone: Front to Back (2003), which features stories about his best known character, Sam Boone, Galactic Hard-Luck Case Extraordinaire. Three digital collections of his work are available from Amazon.com.
Nancy Springer wrote her first novel, The Book of Suns (1977), in early mornings before household chores. Later retitled The Silver Sun, it became the second volume of her high fantasy Book of the Isle (or Vale) series, noted for its lyrical writing. She continued in that vein with Wings of Flame (1985) and the Sea King trilogy (Madbond (1987), Mindbond (1987) and Godbond (1988)) but then turned to contemporary fantasy (The Hex Witch of Seldom (1988) and Apocalypse (1989)) and magic realism (the Tiptree Award winning Larque on the Wing (1994) and Metal Angel (1994)). Her short story “The Boy Who Plaited Manes” (1986) was a Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award nominee. Prom Night (1999) collects 22 of her shorter works. She has also written mysteries, winning two Edgar Awards. In recent years, she has concentrated on children’s books, such as the Rowan Hood series (Rowan Hood: Outlaw Girl of Sherwood Forest (2001), Lionclaw (2002), Wild Boy (2004)) set in a Sherwood Forest whose Robin Hood is female.
Kathlyn S. Starbuck writes fantasy with New Age themes. Her published novels are Time in Mind (1993), India’s Story (1994) and The House at the Top of the Hill (1997).
Christopher Stasheff began his career as a comic fantasist with The Warlock in Spite of Himself (1969), which has been followed by over a dozen further books set on the magic-strewn planet of Gramarye. His Rogue Wizard series, which started with Wizard in Bedlam (1979), mixes fantasy with space opera. His third series, the pure fantasy A Wizard in Rhyme, began with Her Majesty’s Wizard (1986) and centers on crossings between our world and one inhabited by magical versifiers. Surprisingly for light fantasy, these works contain powerful, though not ostentatious, religious elements. He ventured into SF without magical blends in the Starship Troupers series (A Company of Stars (1991), We Open on Venus (1992), A Slight Detour (1994)), which centers on a 23rd Century acting company and reflects his own academic and practical background in the theater. His short fiction is collected in Mind Out of Time (2003). His latest novel, The Warlock’s Last Ride (2004), brings the Gramarye series to a bittersweet finale.
Manny Staub is a jeweler whose designs make frequent use of science fiction and fantasy themes. In the 1960’s he was commissioned by the University of Pennsylvania to produce replicas of West African jewelry. He identified one of the originals, after art experts had been baffled, as an Ashanti depiction of a dinosaur. He lives in Philadelphia.
Allen Steele has an M.A. in Journalism and worked as a reporter and free lance journalist before entering the SF field. “Live from the Mars Hotel” appeared in the Mid-December 1988 issue of Asimov’s, the first of his more than 60 published short stories. He has received seven Hugo and three Nebula Award nominations. “The Death of Captain Future” (1995) and “. . . Where Angels Fear to Tread” (1997; expanded into his time travel novel Chronospace (2001)) won Best Novella Hugos. His stories are collected in Rude Astronauts (1993), All-American Alien Boy (1996), Sex and Violence in Zero-G (1999) and American Beauty (2003), while Primary Ignition: Essays 1997-2001 (2003) gathers a selection of his abundant writings on the future of space travel, the nature of SF and other topics. His debut novel, Orbital Decay (1989), was voted Best First Novel by readers of Locus. He has published nine more, most centered on the near future, particularly on various methods of space travel. The Tranquillity Alternative (1996) is an alternate history in which the U.S. space program starts in 1944 and is dying of neglect by the mid-1990’s. A King of Infinite Space (1997) is a departure, taking a cryogenically preserved, spoiled brat rich kid into a dystopia a century hence. Oceanspace (2000) is set in a mining complex beneath the Atlantic Ocean. Coyote (2002), two parts of which were nominated for Hugo Awards when published separately, tells of the theft of the first interstellar spaceship and its voyage to a new world. A sequel, Coyote Rising, is scheduled for publication at the end of 2004.
S. M. Stirling has written over 30 volumes of military science fiction, alternate histories and combinations of the two. His earliest works, such as his debut novel Snowbrother (1985), were high fantasy, but he began carving his niche with Marching Through Georgia (1988) and the following volumes of the Draka series, a dystopic alternate history tracing the rise of the militaristic, slave owning Dominion of Draka and its conflicts first with Nazi Germany and then with the United States. His Island in the Sea of Time series (Island in the Sea of Time (1997), Against the Tide of Years (1998), On the Oceans of Eternity (2000)) is an epic time travel saga, in which the island of Nantucket is thrust back into the Bronze Age. Conquistador (2003) is a parallel worlds story, in which contemporary fortune seekers set out to conquer an American continent that Europeans never reached. His latest novel, Dies the Fire (2004), portrays the effect on the rest of the world of the storm that sent Nantucket traveling in time.
John E. Stith worked in the space industry for years while daydreaming about becoming a writer. He finally persuaded himself to start turning out wordage, initially on a hand-built MITS 6800 computer, and sold his first story,“Early Winter”, to Fantastic in 1979. His debut novel was Scapescope (1984), which was followed by seven more, all in the “hard SF” vein. Redshift Rendezvous (1990), in which a starship moves through a hyperspace in which the speed of light is 22 miles per hour, was a Nebula Award Best Novel nominee. His most recent book is Reckoning Infinity (1997).
J. Michael Straczynski created, produced and directed Babyon 5 (1993-1997), the most acclaimed SF television series since the original Star Trek. In an unprecedented feat, B5 episodes won the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo two years running (1996 and 1997). He has a vast number of other television and motion picture writing credits in virtually every genre. His first novel, Demon Night (1988), was a Bram Stoker Award nominee. He has since published seven other novels, three books of nonfiction, a number of short stories and many graphic novels. A collection of his short fiction, Straczynski Unplugged, appeared this year. He was a Special Guest of Honor at the 1998 World Science Fiction Convention.
Somtow Suchariktul writes as “S. P. Somtow” for the benefit of those without nimble tongues. His first SF work appeared in Thailand while he was still a teenager. He began publishing in America in 1979 and won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1981, the year in which he debut novel Starship and Haiku appeared. He has since published 30 more novels, ranging from the galaxy-spanning Light on the Sound (1982) to the alternate historical The Aquiliad (1983) to fantasy (The Shattered Horse (1986)) to horror (Darker Angels (1997)) to children’s stories (The Wizard’s Apprentice (1993)). He gained Hugo Award nominations for “Absent Thee From Felicity Awhile” (1981, Best Short Story) and “Aquila” (1982, Best Novelette). In recent years, he has devoted much of his energy to his other vocation, classical music composition. His musical works include symphonies, operas and “Requiem in Memoriam 9/11”, commissioned by the government of Thailand as a tribute to the victims of the atrocity.
Kathryn Sullivan started writing science fiction and fantasy at age 14, after having read all of her father’s collection. She wrote a large quantity of fanzine and semi-pro fiction before publishing her first novel, The Crystal Throne (2003), a fantasy parallel worlds tale. Some of her stories are collected in Agents and Adepts (2003).
Michael Swanwick broke into science fiction with two Nebula Award Best Novelette nominees in his first year (his debut sale, “The Feast of St. Janis”, New Dimensions 11 (1980), and “Ginungagap”), followed by a steady acceleration of output, until he is now one of the most prolific authors in the field. In this case, quantity is compatible with quality, as he has received 20 Hugo nominations, winning the Best Short Story Hugos in 1999, 2000 and 2002 and Best Novelette in 2003. His “Legions in Time” is a Best Novelette nominee this year. His Nebula performance is equally impressive; he now has a total of 16 nominations and won the Best Novel Nebula in 1991 for Stations of the Tide. He won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novella in 1996 with “Radio Waves”. Collections of his short fiction include Gravity’s Angels (1991), A Geography of Unknown Lands (1997), Moon Dogs (2000), Tales of Old Earth (2000) and Cigar-Box Faust (2001). His output of novels is sparser. The first was In the Drift (1985), a set of linked stories taking place a century after a hypothetical Three Mile Island disaster. It was followed by Vacuum Flowers (1987), Stations of the Tide (1991), The Iron Dragon’s Daughter (1993), Jack Faust (1997) and Bones of the Earth (2002), a time travel yarn stretching from the Mesozoic Era to the far future that was nominated for both the Hugo and the Nebula. He also writes SF-related nonfiction, such as the controversial essays “A User’s Guide to the Post-Moderns” and “In the Tradition”, where he introduced the concept of “hard fantasy”.
Haruka Takachiho is a Japanese writer and anime producer, winner of Seiun (Japanese Hugo) Awards for Best Short Story (1980) and Best Novel (1985). His first published fiction was Crisis on Planet Pizan (1977), the inaugural volume of his Crusher Joe series. His other work includes the Dirty Pair series, Wolves’ Wilderness, Golden Apollo and Summer, Wind, Rider. In 1972, while still in college, he founded Studio Nue to produce his anime scenarios. He is a past executive secretary of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Japan.
Cecilia Tan founded Circlet Press in 1991 to publish science fiction and fantasy with erotic themes. She has edited some 40 anthologies under its imprint and has published a large number of stories of her own. About 20 of them are collected in Black Feathers (1998). Circlet Press published her “cybersex” novel The Velderet in 2002. She also writes about baseball and has forthcoming books recounting the greatest games of the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox.
Judith Tarr is an escaped academic, holding degrees from Mount Holyoke College and Cambridge University and a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from Yale. Her more than 30 novels and numerous short stories are divided among high fantasy, historical fantasy and mainstream historical novels. The divisions are not always sharply drawn: Her almost purely historical Lord of the Two Lands (1993) was a World Fantasy Award nominee. Her debut novel was The Isle of Glass (1985), the first volume of The Hound and the Falcon. Among the most popular of her other books are Alamut (1989), The Shepherd Kings (1999), The Lady of Horses (2000), Household Gods (2000, with Harry Turtledove) and the two Avaryan trilogies (Avaryan Rising: The Hall of the Mountain King (1986), The Lady of Han-Gilen (1987), A Fall of Princes (1988); Avaryan Resplendent: Arrows of the Sun (1993), The Spear of Heaven (1994), Tides of Darkness (2002)). Her most recent novel, Queen of the Amazons (2004) is a sequel to Lord of the Two Lands but has a far larger fantasy element. When not writing, she breed and trains Lipizzan horses.
Bruce Taylor is a practitioner and promoter of Magic Realism. Those who wonder what Magic Realism is can find out by reading his collection The Final Trick of Funnyman and Other Stories (2001). Since he began writing in 1972, his work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including New Dimensions, Tomorrow, Pulphouse, Twilight Zone, The Silver Web and Magic Realism. He is the founder of the Magic Realist Writers International Network and a former writer-in-residence at Shakespeare & Company in Paris.
William Tenn is the pen name of Philip Klass, one of science fiction’s sharpest-penned satirists. His first published story, “Alexander the Bait” (Astounding, 1946) remarkably predicted that space flight would be the product of institutional efforts rather than individual genius. He rapidly became known for his incisively comic short fiction, much of which appeared in Galaxy during the 1950’s. He has published only one novel, Of Men and Monsters (1968), in which humans survive as vermin following an alien conquest of Earth. Among his more renowned short stories are “Medusa Was a Lady” (1951), “The Liberation of Earth” (1953), “The Custodian” (1953), “Down Among the Dead Men” (1954), “The Discovery of Morniel Mathaway” (1955) and “Wednesday’s Child” (1956). Several collections of his work appeared during the 1950’s and 1960’s. Those are now out of print, but his complete fiction oeuvre has been reprinted in two fat volumes: Immodest Proposals and Here Comes Civilization (both 2001). Appearing for the first time at Noreascon is Dancing Naked: The Non-Fiction of Philip Klass. From 1966 until his retirement, he was Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University, where he taught a popular science fiction course. In 1999, the Science Fiction Writers of America bestowed on him the title “Author Emeritus”. He is Author Guest of Honor at Noreascon Four.
Brian Thomsen has edited or co-edited two dozen anthologies, including Grails (1992), Mob Magic (1998), Oceans of Magic (2001), Alternate Gettysburgs (2002) and The American Fantasy Tradition (2002). Recent additions are A Yuletide Universe (2003), Cyberfilms: The Stories That Became the Films (2004) and Masters of Fantasy (2004, with Bill Fawcett). In 1988 he was nominated for the Best Professional Editor Hugo. He has written two fantasy novels, Once Around the Realms (1995) and The Mage in the Iron Mask (1996), and a small number of short stories. He has also edited collections of Civil War writings, such as Blue and Gray at Sea: Naval Memoirs of the Civil War (2003). Formerly senior editor for science fiction and fantasy at Warner books and Director of Books and Periodicals at TSR, he is now a consulting editor for Tor Books.
Amy Thomson published her first novel, Virtual Girl, in 1993 and the next year won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. She followed up with The Color of Distance (1995) and Through Alien Eyes (1999), both set on a planet whose natives undergo a bizarre amphibious life cycle and converse with colors and patterns rather than sounds. Her fourth novel is Storyteller (2003), which features a primitive world with interstellar secrets and telepathic whales.
Shane Tourtellotte suffers occasional misspelling of his name (including once in a story byline in an anthology). What you see above is correct. He began trying to write science fiction in 1994 but needed a while to sell anything. His first published story, “Mortal Instruments”, appeared in Analog’s February 1998 issue. He has followed it up with another 25 or so, including the Hugo-nominated novelette, “The Return of Spring” (2002), about the challenges that follow recovery from Alzheimer’s Disease. He was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2000.
Emru Townsend is the founder of fps: The Magazine of Animation, originally a fanzine and now an on-line publication ( www.fpsmagzine.com). He has made his living as a freelance author since 1991, publishing over a hundred articles on technology and entertainment.
Wilson (“Bob”) Tucker published his first fanzine, The Planetoid, in 1932 and has been a leading light of Fandom ever since. His Le Zombie, appearing “every time a zombie awakens” since 1938, has reached over 70 issues, while Bloomington News Letter (later Science Fiction News Letter) was a pioneer newszine. He was one of the triumvirate that organized the second World Science Fiction Convention (Chicago, 1940), Fan Guest of Honor at the 1948 and 1967 Worldcons, and Worldcon Toastmaster in 1962 and 1976. In 1970 he won the Best Fan Writer Hugo Award. He has been the originator of or inspiration for fannish projects beyond numerating, including the Tucker Hotel and the Beer Can Tower to the Moon. Like many fans, he also tried writing; unlike most, he sold what he wrote. His first published story, “Interstellar Way Station” (Super Science Novels, 1941), was followed by about 20 novels, divided between SF and mysteries. His first book-length SF appearance was The City in the Sea (1951). Best known of his novels are the post-Holocaust tale The Long Loud Silence (1952), The Lincoln Hunters (1958; time travelers from a grim future seek a lost speech by Abraham Lincoln), and The Year of the Quiet Sun (1970), which was nominated for the Hugo and the Nebula Awards and received a John W. Campbell Memorial Award. He appears twice on this year’s Retro-Hugo ballot (for work done in 1953): as a nominee for Best Fan Writer and as editor of Best Fanzine nominee Science Fiction News Letter.
Harry Turtledove has evolved from working historian (Ph.D. in Byzantine Studies and a published translation of the 9th Century Chronicle of Theophanes) to constructor of alternate histories based on premises ranging from Mohammed’s conversion to Christianity (Agent of Byzantium (1987)) to Robert E. Lee’s acquisition of AK-47’s (The Guns of the South (1992)). He began publishing fiction in 1979, with two sword-and-sorcery novels (Werenight and Wereblood) under the pseudonym Eric G. Iverson. (His editor thought that “Turtledove” was too implausible.) Agent of Byzantium and The Misplaced Legion (both 1987) marked his decisive turn toward alternate history, though he has also delved into other subgenres (e. g., the punnish fantasy The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump (1993)). He pens non-alternate historical novels under the thin disguise of “H. N. Turteltaub”. To date, he has written more than 60 novels and 30 short stories. His novella “Down in the Bottomlands” (1993) won a Hugo Award, and he has received four other Hugo and Nebula nominations. While many of his novels are independent of the others, he has also constructed massive series, including World at War (a fantasy parallel to World War II), Worldwar (World War II interrupted by an alien invasion) and American Empire (the aftermath of Southern independence). His latest books are Gunpowder Empire (2003, portraying commerce between parallel universes), In the Presence of Mine Enemies (2003; the lives of secret Jews in a victorious Nazi Germany), The Sacred Land (2004; as “Turteltaub”, third in a series of Hellenistic seafaring yarns) and Return Engagement (2004; first of a new series – a 20th Century war between the United States and an independent Confederacy). He was Toastmaster of the 2000 World Science Fiction Convention.
Mary A. Turzillo is a quondam professor of English with many academic articles, plus book-length studies of Anne McCaffrey and Philip Jose Farmer, on her curriculum vitae. She now works full time at writing and mothering. She turned her attention seriously to fiction in 1988 and has published more than 30 stories plus a large number of SF and non-SF poems. Some of the verse is collected in Galileo’s Blindness (1994). “Mars Is No Place for Children” (1999) won the Nebula Award for Best Novelette, and her poetry has twice been nominated for the Rhysling Award. Her first novel, An Old-Fashioned Martian Girl, is currently being serialized in Analog.
Jeanne Van Buren-Pejo interviewed Vietnam veterans as a project for a college course and was inspired to pitch an anthology of Vietnam-related science fiction stories to an editor at Tor Books. The resulting book, In the Field of Fire (1987, with Jack Dann), was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology. She also published several stories in the 1980’s. She is at present a medical surgical missionary in Asia and a professional photographer with her own gallery.
Mark L. Van Name co-founded the Sycamore Hill Writers’ Conference, an annual, invitation-only workshop for promising young science fiction and fantasy writers. His own stories have appeared in Asimov’s and in anthologies of original works. He co-edited Intersections: The Sycamore Hill Anthology. Outside the SF field, he has authored several hundred computer-related articles and papers.
A. E. van Vogt (1912–2000) was one of the creators of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Discovered by John W. Campbell, Jr. in 1939, when he submitted “Black Destroyer” to Astounding, he became an ASF mainstay, publishing 35 stories, some of novel length, there between 1939 and 1947. He was famous for intricate, metaphysical space operas, such as The Weapon Shops of Isher (1942), The World of Null-A (1945) and The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950). His most memorable novel, Slan (1940), was one of the earliest and best “oppressed supermen” tales. In the 1950’s, he pursued other interests, returning to SF only sporadically. The Battle of Forever (1971) is generally considered the best of his late novels, and “Research Alpha” (with James H. Schmitz) was a 1965 Nebula Best Novella nominee. Ill health forced him to cease writing completely in the early 1980’s. He received the Nebula Grand Master Award in 1995. He was Author Guest of Honor at the 1946 World Science Fiction Convention.
Jack Vance began writing science fiction while serving in the Merchant Marine during World War II and made his first sale (“The World Thinker”) to Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1945. His early stories were mostly space opera, but he broke new ground in 1950 with The Dying Earth. Set in a future unimaginably distant, the book’s linked stories blend fantasy and scientific speculation in a way that became a Vance hallmark. His next book, the novel Big Planet, refurbished the Burroughs-like planetary romance. He has since published over 70 novels and story collections, covering an immense range of imaginative territory. Among the most notable are The Languages of Pao (1958), Cugel’s Saga (1966), Emphyrio (1969), the Lyonesse trilogy (Suldrun’s Garden (1983), The Green Pearl (1985), Madouc (1990)) and Araminta Station (1988). A new novel, Lurulu, is forthcoming. He received the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984 and the Science Fiction Writers of America Grand Master Award in 1997. His short story “The Dragon Masters” (1962) won the 1963 Hugo Award, and his novelette “The Last Castle” (1966) was both a Nebula and Hugo winner. He also has written mystery novels, winning an Edgar for his 1960 novel The Man in the Cage. He has been the subject of several books, including a three-volume, very pricey Encyclopedia of Jack Vance (2002). He was Author Guest of Honor at the 1992 World Science Fiction Convention.
John Varley was recognized as one of the most significant new writers of the 1970’s almost immediately upon the publication of his first story, “Picnic on Nearside” (Fantasy & Science Fiction, 1974). A year later his “Retrograde Summer” gained a Nebula Best Novelette nomination. His first novel, The Opiuchi Hotline (1977), set in a not-too-distant future when mankind has been exiled from Earth to eke out a living on less desirable worlds of the Solar System, features as its protagonist a series of clones of a man who dies in the opening chapter. Varley’s work is noteworthy for experimentation and edginess, which has not kept it from winning awards. He has eight Nebula nominations, winning Best Novella honors for “The Persistence of Vision” (1978) and “Press Enter #” (1984), as well as 15 Hugo nominations and three victories (the two Nebula winners and the short story “The Pusher” (1981)). His latest novel is Red Thunder (2003), in which a band of American misfits race to land on Mars before the technologically more advanced Chinese. The John Varley Reader, a compendium of his short fiction, has just been published.
Vernor Vinge has the highest awards-to-words ratio of any active author, his seven novels having garnered six Hugo and Nebula nominations and two victories (Hugos for A Fire upon the Deep (1992) and A Deepness in the Sky (1999)). His fairly small body of shorter fiction likewise takes high honors: Best Novella Hugos for “Fast Times at Fairmont High” (2001) and “The Cookie Monster” (2003), Hugo and Nebula Best Novella nominations for “True Names” (1981) and a Hugo Best Novelette nomination for “The Barbarian Princess” (1986). His first published short story was “Apartness” (New Worlds, 1965), followed the next year by his debut novel Grimm’s World. With “True Names”, The Peace War (1984) and Marooned in Realtime (1986), he earned a reputation for exploring the implications of cybernetics, genetic engineering and other new technologies from a hard SF rather than a cyberpunk point of view. The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge (2002) contains virtually all of his short fiction up to the date of publication. His latest novel, Rainbows End (2006) follows the lead of his recent short fiction by looking at the implications of cybernetics from a non-cyberpunk point of view. [Updated, 3/13/06]
Paula Volsky has written ten fantasy novels, beginning with The Curse of the Witch Queen (1982). Her latest is The Grand Ellipse (2000), a World Fantasy Award nominee set in a quasi-Victorian world. Her métier is fantasy modeled on history or on classic fiction. Thus Illusion (1991) parallels the French Revolution and The Gates of Twilight recalls the Indian Mutiny, while The White Tribunal (1997) and The Grand Ellipse borrow from, respectively, The Count of Monte Cristo and Around the World in Eighty Days.
Karl Edward Wagner (1945–1994) is often credited with bringing new life to sword-and-sorcery via his Kane series, which began with Darkness Weaves (1970) and continued through six novels and linked story collections, concluding with The Book of Kane (1985). The series featured an immortal protagonist who differed from the ordinary fantasy hero by being intelligent, self-aware and endowed with a sense of humor. Three of the novels have been collected as Gods in Darkness (2002). Short stories featuring Kane make up The Midnight Sun (2003). His other work – eight novels and over 50 short stories – falls mainly within the horror genre. His vampire novella “Beyond Any Measure” (1982) was a World Fantasy Award winner. He received four other World Fantasy Award nominations, four Bram Stoker Award nominations and three British Fantasy Awards. For 15 years he edited DAW’s Year’s Best Horror anthologies. His other endeavors included a small-press publisher, Carcosa House, which issued collections of stories by pulp-era greats and received a World Fantasy Special Award in 1975.
Sage Walker is the author of Whiteout (1996), which was voted “Best First Novel” by the readers of Locus. She has also published a small number of short stories, most recently in Asimov’s.
Ron Walotsky (1943–2002) was one of science fiction’s most renowned, but nonetheless underappreciated, artists. He broke into the field in 1967 with the cover of the May issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Thereafter he became one of F&SF’s most frequent cover artists, furnishing more than 50 paintings over the years (the last for the December 2002 issue). Also in 1967, he received the first of over a hundred book and record album cover commissions. A selection of his work, notable for its surreal and individualistic touches, appeared in Inner Visions: The Art of Ron Walotsky (2000). He was a twelve-time Chesley Award nominee. In addition to conventional pieces, he was known for the exotic masks that he fashioned from the shells of horseshoe crabs. He was Artist Guest of Honor at the 1996 World Fantasy Convention.
Bob Walters is a science fiction and natural history artist who has illustrated more than 20 books on dinosaurs, including the Jurassic Park Institute Dinosaur Field Guide and The Big Book of Dinosaurs. His work is on display at the National Museum of Natural History, The Creative Discovery Museum, The Academy of Natural Sciences and other museums. His scientific credits include the first restorations of Giganotosaurus and Avaceratops. He was a consultant to PBS’s and the Discovery Channel’s dinosaur documentary series and the Smithsonian’s “Virtual Triceratops” exhibit.
Bill Warren combines SF and film fandom. His magnum opus is Keep Watching the Skies! (1982; 2nd ed., 1997), a 1,300 page commentary on American science fiction movies of the 1950’s. He also wrote Set Visits: Interviews with 32 Horror and Science Fiction Filmmakers (1997) and The “Evil Dead” Companion (2001), a guide to the cult movie. His articles on the year’s SF movies have appeared in many of the annual Nebula Award anthologies, and he has written extensively for Starlog, Fangoria, American Film, Leonard Maltin’s film guides and other publications.
Lawrence Watt-Evans has published over 30 novels and 100 short stories, as well as more than 150 articles on a wide range of topics. His career at a fantasy writer began with The Lure of the Basilisk (1980), which he sold at the very moment when he had given up hope of making his living as a writer. In 1985, The Misenchanted Sword launched his popular Ethshar series, which has now reached eight volumes (most recently Ithanalin's Restoration (2002)). It is noteworthy for adding depth and realism to the conventions of the sword-and-sorcery genre. His Three Worlds trilogy (Out of This World (1994), In the Empire of Shadow (1995), The Reign of the Brown Magician (1996)) portrays a conflict between scientific and magical universes, with our world at the epicenter. His short fiction includes the Hugo winner and Nebula nominee “Why I Left Harry’s All-Night Hamburgers” (1987). He is a past president of the Horror Writers of America, which presented him with its first-ever Service Award when he left office in 1996. His hobbies include collecting comic books, which has led him to write for the Comic Buyer’s Guide and Comic Collector and to script stories for Marvel and Dark Horse Comics. His latest book is Dragon Venom (2003), the concluding volume of his Obsidian Chronicles series (Dragon Weather (1999), The Dragon Society (2001)), whose hero strives to carry out genocide against dragonkind in revenge for the destruction of his native village.
Janeen Webb teaches literature at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, specializing in children’s literature, speculative fiction and comparative literature. She has published several book-length, and many shorter, works of literary criticism dealing with both science fiction and other genres. Her SF criticism won the William Atheling Award in 1999. She co-edited the Australian Science Fiction Review from 1987 through 1991, was for several years the reviews editor for Eidolon: The Journal of Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy, and, with Jack Dann, edited an anthology of original Australian SF, Dreaming Down-Under (2001). She won the 1997 Aurealis Award for her short story “Niagara Falling” (with Jack Dann). Her recent books have been fantasies for children, including Sailing to Atlantis (2001) and Silken Road to Samarkand (2003).
Karen Wehrstein wrote the fantasy novels Lion’s Heart, Lion’s Soul and (with S. M. Stirling and Shirley Meier) Shadow’s Son, all of which appeared in 1991 as parts the multi-author “Fifth Millennium” series. While the “fifth millennium” in many ways resembles other post-Apocalypse recovery yarns, it has a strong philosophical overlay that has won a cult following.
Len Wein became a comic book enthusiast at age seven and made his first sale (which he prefers to forget) while in high school. He has since become a prolific and highly regarded comics writer and editor who has worked for Gold Key, DC, Marvel and Disney Comics. He co-created Swamp Thing, The New X-Men and Human Target, and has contributed to Justice League of America, The Phantom Stranger, Superman, Batman, Hulk, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Thor and many other comics series. He also served as editor-in-chief of Marvel’s color comics line, as editor of several DC titles and as Disney Comics’ editor-in-chief. Other credits include over 60 animated TV series episodes and movie scripts. In 1964 he chaired the first Comicon, which has since grown into an annual event attracting up to 50,000 fans. His current projects are The Victorian (Penny-Farthing Press) and the mini-series Batman: Nevermore (DC/Elseworlds), which intermingles the worlds of the famous superhero and Edgar Allan Poe.
Michelle Sagara West has written as “Michelle Sagara”, “Michelle Sagara West” and lately as “Michelle West”. She debuted in 1991 with the novel Into the Dark Lands and made enough of an impression to be nominated for the John W. Campbell Award in both of her years of eligibility (1992 and 1993). She has since published a dozen fantasy novels. All of the recent ones have belonged to the Sun Sword series, which began with The Broken Crown (1997) and concluded with The Sun Sword (2004). She has also published nearly 50 short stories, some of which are gathered in Speaking With Angels (2003).
Michael Whelan has won the Best Professional Artist Hugo Award more often than anyone else (15 times) and its World Fantasy Convention counterpart, the Howard Award, three times (the maximum number permitted). Awards from outside fandom include the Grumbacher Gold Medal (1994) and the Society of Illustrators Gold Medal (1997). He began his professional career in 1974 and since then has created hundreds of paintings for book and magazine covers, calendars, record albums and gallery exhibition. Selections of his paintings have appeared in Wonderworks (1979), Michael Whelan’s Works of Wonder (1987; winner of the Best Non-Fiction Book Hugo Award), The Art of Michael Whelan (1993) and on a set of limited edition trading cards. Among recent examples of his work are the “Dragons and Mystics” calendars for 2003 and 2004. He was Artist Guest of Honor at the 1998 World Science Fiction Convention.
James White (1928–1999) achieved distinction as both a fan and a pro. One of the leading lights of the legendary Irish Fandom, he was a regular contributor to Slant and Hyphen. The White Papers, a selection of his fannish writings, accompanied by several novelettes, was published to mark his appearance as Author Guest of Honor at the 1996 World Science Fiction Convention. His professional works included over 25 novels and story collections, starting with The Secret Visitors (1957). He was best known for the Sector General series, set in an interstellar hospital that must cope with the bizarre illnesses of widely diverse alien species. Two of his novels, Second Ending (1961) and The Escape Orbit (1963), were Hugo and Nebula nominees, respectively. Many of his non-Sector General novels, such as The Silent Stars Go By (1991), reflect his quiet but firm Roman Catholicism. After his death, Interzone magazine established the James White Award, an annual competition for science fiction short stories by non-professional authors. He is a nominee for Best Fan Writer in this year’s Retro-Hugo Awards (for work done in 1953).
Lori Ann White has been publishing short stories, most recently in Asimov’s and Analog, since her initial appearance in Writers of the Future III (1987). In mundane life, she works as a technical writer and teaches martial arts.
Stanley Wiater calls himself “a cultural explorer of the fantastique”. He is active in the horror and comics genres as a writer, journalist and interviewer. Two interview collections, Dark Dreamers: Conversations With the Masters of Horror (1990) and Dark Thoughts: On Writing (1997), won Bram Stoker Awards, and another, Dark Visions: Conversations With the Masters of the Horror Film (1992), was nominated. He has also produced a two volume collection of Richard Matheson’s Twilight Zone scripts, studies of Stephen King and Brian Lumley, two original fiction anthologies (Night Visions 7 and After the Darkness) and The Official Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Treasury. His short stories have appeared in a number of horror anthologies, and two have been adapted into short films. He has also hosted the Canadian television series Dark Dreamers.
Art Widner was a founder of The Stranger Club, the pioneers of Boston fandom, and chaired the first two Boston-area conventions, Boskones I and II (1941 and 1942). In 1941 he organized a car pool from the East Coast to the Worldcon in Denver, an adventurous undertaking in those days. He has published, at last count, 164 fanzines, the longest running of which was YHOS (1940–45 and 1979–2001). He invented what was probably the first science fiction board game, Interplanetary. It was never published commercially, but handmade versions are still played at conventions. A member of the First Fandom Hall of Fame, he was honored with the Big Heart Award in 1989, was the 1991 DUFF delegate and served a term as president of Fan Writers of America in 2000. Along with the other members of The Stranger Club, he was Fan Guest of Honor at the 1989 World Science Fiction Convention.
Kate Wilhelm is prolific in both science fiction and mysteries, sometimes combining the two genres. She began publishing SF in 1956 (“The Pint-Size Genie”) and has since gained 18 Nebula and five Hugo Award nominations. Though she is best known for her short fiction, her novel Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang (1976), centered on a community of clones in post-nuclear war Appalachia, won the Hugo Award. Three of her shorter works have been Nebula Award winners (“The Planners” (1968), “The Girl Who Fell from the Sky” (1986) and “Forever Yours, Anna” (1987)). Collections of her short fiction include Somerset Dreams and Other Fictions (1978) and And the Angels Sing (1992). Her SF/mystery crossovers include the “Danvers and Meiklejohn” series and Death Qualified: A Mystery of Chaos (1991). She also writes straight mysteries featuring lawyer-detective Barbara Holloway. The latest is the just-published The Unbidden Truth. Her influence on science fiction extends beyond writing. She assisted her husband Damon Knight in founding the Clarion Science Fiction Writers’ Workshop in 1968 and edited an anthology of its students’ work. Alumni include many of the leading names in contemporary SF. With Damon she was Professional Guest of Honor at the 1980 World Science Fiction Convention.
Edward Willett divides his writing between children’s books and hefty computer tomes like The Office XP Bible. He has published four fantasy novels for young adults and juvenile nonfiction on subjects ranging from the Iran-Iraq War to careers in the space program to rock climbing to the life of J. R. R. Tolkien. He also hosts a local television show about computers and the Internet in Regina, Saskatchewan, and has written numerous articles on scientific topics. His first adult novel, Lost in Translation, about a human and alien who need to communicate in order to save their species from war, is due out in early 2005.
Liz Williams is the daughter of a magician father and Gothic novelist mother, holds a doctorate from Cambridge in the Philosophy of Science, and worked for several years in Kazakhstan, though she now lives in England and writes full time for a living. Her first published story was “A Child of the Dead” (Interzone, September 1997), and she has since sold about 40 more. “Adventures in the Ghost Trade” (2000) was nominated for the British SF Short Fiction Award. Her stories are collected in Banquet of the Lords of Night (2004). Her first novel, The Ghost Sister (2001), was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award. She has followed it with Empire of Bones (2002; also a PKD Award nominee), The Poison Master (2003), Nine Layers of Sky (2003) and Banner of Souls (2004).
Sheila Williams succeeded Gardner Dozois as editor of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine at the beginning of 2005, after over 20 years of association with Asimov’s and its sibling magazine Analog. With Dozois, she has edited the topical Isaac Asimov’s anthology series (13 books so far), ranging from Isaac Asimov’s Ghosts (1986) through Isaac Asimov’s Halloween (2001). She has also edited or co-edited eight other anthologies, including Intergalactic Mercenaries (with Cynthia Manson, 1996) and A Woman’s Liberation (with Connie Willis, 2001). She serves as a judge of the annual Isaac Asimov Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing, which is awarded for the best unpublished SF or fantasy short story submitted by a full-time college student. [Updated, 3/13/06]
Tad Williams has 13 fantasy novels to his credit, starting with Tailchaser’s Song (1985). His Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series (The Dragonbone Chair (1988), The Stone of Farewell (1990), To Green Angel Tower (1993)) put a twist on the “high fantasy” genre by presenting a Dark Lord with comprehensible motivations and a Good King who was not quite what he seemed. The Otherland series (City of Golden Shadow (1996), River of Blue Fire (1998), Mountain of Black Glass (1999), Sea of Silver Light (2001)) blends high fantasy, hard SF, alternate worlds and fairy tales. He latest work is War of the Flowers (2003), a dark fantasy set in a modernized Faerie. Forthcoming is Shadowmarch, the first volume of a new fantasy trilogy. He was Toastmaster of the 2002 World Science Fiction Convention.
Walter Jon Williams started his writing career with historical novels set in the Age of Sail (as “Jon Williams”), but the historical fiction market collapsed beneath him, and he migrated to his first love, science fiction, with Ambassador of Progress (1984). In 1986 Hardwired made his name in the cyberpunk subgenre, with which he has since been closely, but not exclusively, identified. Metropolitan (1995) and City on Fire (1997), set in a world with both magic and 1940’s technology, were Nebula nominees, the latter also gaining a Hugo nomination. His short fiction has garnered seven Nebula and four Hugo nominations, with “Daddy’s World” winning the Best Novelette Nebula in 2000. “The Green Leopard Plague” is a nominee for Best Novella this year. Outside the auctorial arena, he has designed role playing games based on his interests in 18th Century naval warfare (Privateers and Gentlemen (1981)) and cybernetics (Hardwired (1990)). His latest novels are the first two parts of Dread Empire’s Fall (The Praxis and The Sundering (both 2003)), portraying the last days of a 10,000 year old galactic empire.
Jack Williamson became the oldest Hugo Award winner ever when his novella “The Ultimate Earth” was selected in 2001, 73 years after the publication of his first story, “The Metal Men” (1928). He recounted his early career in Wonder’s Child: My Life in Science Fiction (1984), which won the Hugo Award for Best Non-Fiction Book. He was a pioneer in adding characterization to space opera (the Legion of Space series) and in exploring the implications of parallel worlds (the Legion of Time series), artificial intelligence (the Hominids series), anti-matter (the SeeTee series) and genetic engineering (Darker Than You Think (1940) and Manseed (1983)). His most recent novels are Terraforming Earth (2001; he coined the word “terraform” in 1942) and The Stonehenge Gate (2005, about mysterious artifacts under the Sahara Desert that lead to an interstellar adventure. Haffner Press has begun a project to collect his voluminous short fiction, so far producing four thick volumes: The Metal Man and Others (1999), Wolves of Darkness (1999), Wizard’s Isle (2000) and Spider Island (2002). A selection of his stories appears in Seventy-Five: The Diamond Anniversary of a Science Fiction Pioneer (2004). In the 1960’s, he earned a Ph.D. and embarked on an academic career, teaching the modern novel and literary criticism at Eastern New Mexico University. His study H. G. Wells: Critic of Progress won the 1973 Pilgrim Award for SF-related academic work. He has also written several guides to teaching SF for college instructors. He received the Grand Master Nebula Award in 1976 and the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1994. He was Author Guest of Honor at the 1977 World Science Fiction Convention. [Updated, 3/13/06]
Michael Z. Williamson is a familiar figure at science fiction conventions, where he sells hand-crafted swords and knives. Not long ago he took up a second career in writing and already has three novels in print: Freehold (2004), about one woman and a libertarian enclave against the power of a Solar System-wide State, The Hero (2004, with John Ringo) and a non-SF thriller, The Scope of Justice (2004). He has sold four more books, which will be appearing in due course.
Connie Willis is L.A.Con IV’s Author Guest of Honor. She has won a total of 14 Hugo and Nebula Awards, the most that anyone has received in the fiction categories, and has been nominated 34 times, also a record. Her first published story, “Santa Titicaca”, appeared in 1971, but she wrote only occasionally over the next ten years. Her first Hugo nomination was for her 1979 short story “Daisy, In the Sun”. Her Hugo and Nebula winning novelette “Fire Watch” (1982) introduced the 21st Century Cambridge University time travel unit that later appeared in Doomsday Book (1992, a Hugo and Nebula winner) and To Say Nothing of the Dog (1998, another Hugo winner). Among her other novels are Lincoln’s Dreams (1987), Remake (1994), Uncharted Territory (1994) and Bellwether (1996). Her latest novel is Passage (2001), whose subjects include medical research, near-death experiences and the sinking of the Titanic. Her latest appearance in hard covers was the novella, Inside Job (2005), featuring the ghost of H. L. Mencken and a duo of skeptical investigators of paranormal phenomena. Her short fiction has been collected in The Pear-Shaped Man (1991), Impossible Things (1993), Even the Queen: And Other Stories (1998) and Miracle: And Other Christmas Stories (1999). She co-edited the anthology A Woman’s Liberation with Sheila Williams in 2001. Both her tone and her interests are wide-ranging, the one from farcical comedy to grim tragedy, the other from London in the Blitz to the movies of Fred Astaire. She attributes her keen grasp of human psychology to years of singing soprano in her church choir. She is currently working on her “definitive” London Blitz novel, though no publication date has yet been announced. In addition to being Author GoH this year, she was Toastmaster of the 1996 World Science Fiction Convention. [Updated, 3/13/06]
Walter A. Willis (1919–1999) lived in Northern Ireland, from which his influence spread far and wide. His fanzines Slant (edited with James White) and Hyphen (edited with Chuch Harris) are classics of the form. He makes three appearances on this year’s Retro-Hugo ballot (for work done in 1953), as a nominee for Best Fan Writer and editor of two of the nominated fanzines. One of the first overseas fans to become widely known in the United States, he was the 1952 Transatlantic Fan Fund (TAFF) delegate, won the 1958 Hugo Award for Outstanding Actifan and was Fan Guest of Honor at the 1992 Worldcon. The single most famous of his many fan writings is “The Enchanted Duplicator”, a fannish Pilgrim’s Progress co-authored with Bob Shaw.
Karen E. Willson has two sides: As a fan, she filks, is active in the Society for Creative Anachronism and works on conventions, primarily in children’s programming. Among her most visible fannish projects was The Adventurers’ Club, an “edutainmnet” treasure hunt for young members of L.A.Con III, the 1996 World Science Fiction Convention. Meanwhile, as a writer, she has scripted over fifty TV shows, mostly juvenile SF and fantasy. She has also worked on adult shows, including co-writing two Twilight Zone episodes with Steven Barnes.
Dawn Wilson has many book covers and two Chesley Awards to her credit. In recent years, she has turned her attention to innovative artistic niches, such as artist books, mailart and environmental art. “The latest series of books I've been working on are a travel map series. They are untraditional books because they fold and roll up instead of opening them page by page. They are also meant to hang on the wall like a traditional piece of artwork. Each book has its own mood reflecting on nature in its many states. They start with individual pages that are collaged, painted and assembled in a grid-like fashion. The individual pages connect with each other creating a continuous image, supported by fabric, mesh or other non-traditional binding material.”
Robert Charles Wilson sold a story to Analog (“Equinocturne”, as “Bob Chuck Wilson”) in 1975 but then was not heard of in the SF field for ten years. “The Blue Gularis” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July 1985) marked the real beginning of his career as a professional writer. While he writes occasional short fiction, collected in The Perseids and Other Stories (2001), most of his output has consisted of novels. His first, A Hidden Place (1986), was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award. Mysterium (1994) was a PKD Award winner. Three of his last four novels have been Hugo Award nominees: Darwinia (1998; the ecology of Earth is mysteriously and grotesquely transformed), The Chronoliths (2001; giant structures from the future attack the present) and Blind Lake (2003), which is on this year’s ballot.
Allen L. Wold began his writing career in 1976 with Computer Science Projects for Young Scientists, then published nine science fiction novels, plus short fiction and other computer-related books, between 1979 and 1991. Crown of the Serpent (1989) and The Lair of the Cyclops (1991, with Dominque LaPierre) are the most readily available of his works. A job-related move to London put his writing career on hold for several years, but he is now back in the U.S.A. and working on new projects.
Gene Wolfe is often called a “writer’s writer” in recognition of the superlative craft that he brings to his fiction. His first published SF story (“The Dead Man”) appeared in 1965, and he quickly became a regular in Damon Knight’s Orbit anthologies. Orbit 7 carried the first of his 17 Nebula nominees, “The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories” (1970), and Orbit 10 the first of 8 Hugo nominees, “The Fifth Head of Cerberus” (1973). His tales include both science fiction and fantasy, but many blend the genres in surprising ways. His tetralogy The Book of the New Sun (1980-83), set eons in the future and tracing the rise of its hero from lowly torturer to Autarch of Earth, is a masterpiece in the field. His other novels include Peace (1975), Free Live Free (1985), Soldier in the Mist (1986), Soldier of Arete (1989), The Book of the Long Sun (four volumes, 1993-96), The Book of the Short Sun (three volumes, 1999-2001) and The Knight (2004, part one of double-decker novel about a teenager magically transformed into a hero). Collections of his short fiction include The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories (1980), Storeys from the Old Hotel (1988), Endangered Species (1989), Castle of Days (1992), Strange Travelers (1999) and Innocents Abroad: New Fantasy Stories (2004). In 1996 he received the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award. He was Author Guest of Honor at the 1985 World Science Fiction Convention.
Marv Wolfman writes for comic books, television shows and theme parks. He has been editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics and senior editor at DC Comics, for which he created one of the most famous limited comics series, Crisis on Infinite Earths (recently collected as a $100 hard cover volume). He wrote the New Teen Titans books for 16 years. His comics writing has received numerous awards, including a Presidential commendation for a New Teen Titans anti-drug abuse series distributed to high schools by the Department of Education. Television credits include characters and episodes for The Outer Limits, Lois & Clark and many animated shows. Among his current projects are an animated Teen Titans series, writing for the Madrid Six Flags theme park, bible development for Platiunum Studios, and a weekly Web column for the Silver Bullet Comics site.
Eleanor Wood is president of the Spectrum Literary Agency, which represents many leading authors, primarily in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, mystery, suspense and historical romance. She founded the agency in 1976 and merged it two years later with that of Lurton Blassingame (1904-1988), one of the pioneer authors’ representatives. Among Spectrum’s clients are Larry Niven, Jack Williamson, Lois McMaster Bujold, Mike Resnick, and the estates of Robert A. Heinlein and Leigh Brackett.
Robin Wood is an artist whose many illustrations for Anne McCaffrey’s Pern novels have been collected in People of Pern. Her other books include Robin Wood Tarot: The Book, an historical description of the Tarot cards and their development, and The Theory of Cat Gravity. She creates her artwork with computers as much as with brushes and teaches on-line courses in computer graphics.
William F. Wu draws on his Chinese heritage and Kansas upbringing to create stories that blend fantasy, science fiction, realism and myth. “By the Flicker of a One-Eyed Flame”, published in the anthology Andromeda 2 (1977), was his first sale. It has been followed by 15 novels and over 60 short stories. His most popular character is Jack Hong, whose travels across America are impelled by visions of a mythical Chinese unicorn, but he has also written half a dozen pastiches set in the universe of Isaac Asimov’s robot stories. His short stories “Wong’s Lost and Found Emporium” (1983) and “Hong’s Bluff” (1985) were nominated for both the Hugo and the Nebula Awards. His latest novel is The Temple of Forgotten Spirits (2001), one of the Jack Hong cycle. In a stfnal touch, this book, like much of his other recent writing, is available exclusively in electronic format.
Janny Wurts combines successful careers as a fantasy writer and an artist, often painting the cover illustrations for her own books. She has published a dozen novels, beginning with Sorcerer’s Legacy (1982), and a collection of short stories. In 1993, prompted by reflections on moral ambiguity and the absence of handy “Hero” and “Villain” labels in real life, she embarked on her most ambitious series, Wars of Light and Shadow, which reached its sixth volume with Peril’s Gate (2002). Her cover painting for the first book, Curse of the Mistwraith, won the Chesley Award for Best Cover Illustration in 1995. Her most recent novel is a standalone, To Ride Hell’s Chasm (2004). Her art work has garnered numerous awards, including three Chesleys, and has been featured at such venues as NASA and the Hayden Planetarium. In addition to solo work, she collaborates with her husband Don Maitz.
Chelsea Quinn Yarbro introduced Count de St. Germain, the epitome of vampiric elegance, in her novel Hotel Transylvania (1978) and has followed with 19 books featuring him and related denizens of the night, the most recent being Midnight Harvest (2003). The twentieth in the series, Dark of the Sun, is scheduled for later this year. Her first published SF story, “The Posture of Prophecy” appeared in If in 1969. While the far-traveled, 4,000-year-old St. Germain is her best known creation, her work is wide-ranging, from science fiction and horror to westerns and young adult adventures. Of particular note is Ariosto (1980), set in an amalgam of an alternate history Renaissance and the world of Orlando Furioso, which was nominated for the World Fantasy Award. She has three other World Fantasy Award nominations and has also been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award and the British Fantasy Society Best Novel Award (in 1999 for Communion Blood). A recent collection of her short fiction is Apprehensions and Other Delusions (2003). She was Toastmaster of the 1990 World Science Fiction Convention.
Jane Yolen has been a preeminent writer of fantasy for young adults and children since her first fiction book, The Witch Who Wasn’t, appeared in 1964. Since then, she has published something like two hundred books and an immense number of short stories, many of them inspired retellings of traditional fairy tales. Whatever the age of its nominal audience, her writing contains levels of sophistication that appeal to adults. She also edits anthologies for young audiences, such as Xanadu (1993), Xanadu 2 (1994), Snow, Snow: Winter Poems for Children (1998), The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy for Teens (2005, with Patrick Nielsen Hayden) and the just-published Meow: Cat Stories from Around the World (for ages four to eight). Three of her novels (Sister Light, Sister Dark (1989) and its sequel White Jenna (1990; about a girl caught up in messianic prophecies) and Briar Rose (1992; a transposition of the Sleeping Beauty legend to World War II) were Nebula nominees, as was her novella “The Devil’s Arithmetic” (1988). “Sister Emily’s Lightship” (1996) and “Lost Girls” (1997) won Best Short Story and Best Novelette Nebulas. Her other honors include a World Fantasy Special Award for Favorite Folktales from Around the World (1986), a Rhysling Award for Best Short Poem (“Will”, 1992) and the Skylark Award for Lifetime Achievement. She was Author Guest of Honor at the 2005 World Science Fiction Convention. [Updated, 8/1/05]
Timothy Zahn turned to writing science fiction full time after his physics doctoral advisor suffered a heart attack. His first sale was to Analog (“Ernie”, 1979 ), and he soon became well established in short fiction, gaining three Hugo nominations and winning Best Novella for “Cascade Point” (1984). He has since concentrated on novels, publishing 21 to date. George Lucas tapped him to chronicle the Star Wars universe post-Return of the Jedi, a sequence that has run to five books so far. His non-SW work frequently features bizarre environments into which he inserts very human characters. His latest novels are Manta’s Gift (2002), set in the upper atmosphere of Jupiter, two volumes in a new series for young adults (Dragon and Thief (2003) and Dragon and Soldier (2004)) and The Green and the Gray (2004).
Ann Tonsor Zeddies published her debut novel, Deathgift, an SF/fantasy hybrid, in 1988. A sequel, Sky Road, appeared in 1993. Her enthusiasm for swimming and snorkeling produced Typhon’s Children (1999, under the name “Toni Anzetti”), set on an ocean world whose denizens live under water indefinitely. It was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award. She has written two further novels with the same setting, Riders of Leviathan (2001, also as “Anzetti”) and Steel Helix (2003, another Philip K. Dick Award nominee).
Roger Zelazny (1937–1995) won six Hugo and three Nebula Awards for works that mingled science fiction with mythological structures. He was deft at both short and long forms, as shown by the fact that his Hugos were split evenly among Best Novel (. . . And Call Me Conrad (1966) and Lord of Light (1968)), Best Novella (“Home Is the Hangman” (1976) and “24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai” (1986)) and Best Novelette (“Unicorn Variation” (1982) and “Permafrost” (1987)). He published his first story (“Passion Play”) in 1962, and his work quickly began appearing on award ballots. “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” was nominated for the Best Short Fiction Hugo in 1964, and “The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth” won the very first Best Novelette Nebula in 1965. His most popular creation was the Amber series of novels, in which he chronicled the lives of a highly dysfunctional family of transdimensional immortals.
Mark V. Ziesing started selling books with his brother in Connecticut. He now sells them in California with his wife. His entertaining catalogue offers virtually every title in science fiction, fantasy and horror that anybody would want to buy. For over 15 years, he also published books under the Ziesing imprint, starting with Gene Wolfe’s The Castle of the Otter and The Wolfe Archipelago. In addition to well-designed limited editions of works by such writers as Tim Powers, Stephen King, Connie Willis, Harlan Ellison and Michael Moorcock, Ziesing published originals by Wolfe, Philip K. Dick, A. A. Attanasio, Thomas Disch, Lucius Shepherd, Kim Newman and others.
Marc Scott Zicree wrote The Twilight Zone Companion (1983), which has remained continuously in print for over 20 years. He has over 100 television credits, including episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Beauty and the Beast, Sliders, Forever Knight and Babylon 5. He was a producer of Sliders and on staff for other TV series. Outside the Hollywood arena, he co-authored Magic Time (2001) with Barbara Hambly and its sequel Magic Time: Angelfire (2002, with Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff). A continuation of the series, Magic Time: Ghostlands, is forthcoming.
© 2006 by the World Science Fiction Society. All rights reserved.
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