About Robert Silverberg
Robert Silverberg’s first published story appeared in 1954 when he was a sophomore at Columbia University. Since then, he has won multiple Nebula, Hugo, and Locus awards. He has been nominated for both awards more times than any other writer. In 1999 he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, and in 2004 the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America gave him their Grand Master Award for career achievement. He remains one of the most imaginative and versatile writers in science fiction.
About Bryan Thomas Schmidt
Bryan Thomas Schmidt is an author and Hugo-nominated editor of adult and children’s speculative fiction. His debut novel, The Worker Prince, received Honorable Mention on Barnes & Noble Book Club’s Year’s Best Science Fiction Releases. His short stories have appeared in magazines, anthologies, and online and include stories in The X-Files and Decipher’s WARS. As an editor he has edited books by such luminaries as Alan Dean Foster, Tracy Hickman, Frank Herbert, Mike Resnick, Jean Rabe, and more. He was also the first editor on Andy Weir’s bestseller The Martian.
About Seanan McGuire
Seanan McGuire is a Hugo, Nebula, and Locus award-winning author. The October Daye novels are her first urban fantasy series, and the InCryptid novels are her second series, both of which have put her on the New York Times bestseller list and the Hugo ballot. She is the first person to be nominated for five Hugo Awards in a single year.
About Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce (1842–ca. 1914) was an American journalist, short-story writer, and poet. Born in Ohio, he served in the Civil War and then settled in San Francisco. He wrote for Hearst’s Examiner, his wit and satire making him the literary dictator of the Pacific coast and strongly influencing many writers. He disappeared into war-torn Mexico in 1913.
About Jack Williamson
Jack Williamson (1908–2006) published his first short story in 1928 and produced entertaining, thought-provoking science fiction from then on. The second person named Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, he was always in the forefront of the field, being the first to write fiction about genetic engineering (he invented the term), antimatter, and other cutting-edge science. A Renaissance man, he was a master of fantasy and horror as well as science fiction.
About Clifford D. Simak
During his fifty-five-year career, Clifford D. Simak produced some of the most iconic science fiction stories ever written. Born in 1904 on a farm in southwestern Wisconsin, Simak got a job at a small-town newspaper in 1929 and eventually became news editor of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, writing fiction in his spare time.
Simak was best known for the book City, a reaction to the horrors of World War II, and for his novel Way Station. In 1953 City was awarded the International Fantasy Award, and in following years, Simak won three Hugo Awards and a Nebula Award. In 1977 he became the third Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and before his death in 1988, he was named one of three inaugural winners of the Horror Writers Association's Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement.
About Fritz Leiber
Fritz Leiber (1910–1992)
was equally adept at writing science fiction, fantasy, and horror. His works
were honored with the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy awards, and he was named a
Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He also
received the Gandalf Grand Master Award for fantasy writing.
About Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) published thirty-six science fiction novels and 121 short stories in which he explored the essence of what makes man human and the dangers of centralized power. Toward the end of his life, his work turned toward deeply personal, metaphysical questions concerning the nature of God. Eleven novels and short stories have been adapted to film, notably Blade Runner (based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Total Recall, Minority Report, and A Scanner Darkly. The recipient of critical acclaim and numerous awards throughout his career, Dick was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2005, and in 2007 the Library of America published a selection of his novels in three volumes. His work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages.
About Avram Davidson
Avram Davidson (1923–1993) was author of nineteen published novels and more than two hundred short stories and essays collected in more than a dozen books. Davidson won the Hugo Award in science fiction, the Queen’s Award and Edgar Award in the mystery genre, and the World Fantasy Award (three times).
About Roger Zelazny
Roger Zelazny (1937-1995)
was an American author of science fiction and fantasy novels, as well as many
short stories. Known for including both mythological characters of different
origins as well as elements from real history, Zelazny is perhaps best known
for The Chronicles of Amber series. He was awarded the Nebula award three times
and the Hugo award six times.
About Connie Willis
Connie Willis is a science fiction writer and winner of eleven Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards—more major science fiction awards than any other writer. She was inducted by the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2009, and the Science Fiction Writers of America named her its 28th SFWA Grand Master in 2011. She was presented with the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award in 2012 and has received a number of other awards, including an Inkpot Award at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2008. Her first short-story collection, Fire Watch, was a New York Times Notable Book.
