LEIGH BRACKETT (1915–1978), a screenwriter and author, spent most of her career deeply involved in the writing of fantasy and science fiction, for which she perhaps remains best known. Her screenplays include The Vampire’s Ghost (1945) and The Long Goodbye (1973); and Howard Hawks’s The Big Sleep (1946) and Rio Bravo (1958), and also the first draft for Star Wars: Episode V—The Empire Strikes Back (1980), for which she posthumously received a 1981 Hugo Award. None of her television work is in the fields of the fantastic.
In 1940 Brackett began publishing stories of genre interest with “Martian Quest” for Astounding, beginning her period of greatest activity in the science fiction magazines. Her work appeared mostly in Planet Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, and others that offered space for what rapidly became her speciality: swashbuckling but literate planetary romances, usually set on a Mars not dissimilar to Edgar Rice Burroughs’s pioneering creation of a romantic venue out of the speculations of Percival Lowell and others about the possibility of canals—and hence civilizations, presumably ancient—on that planet. Brackett used something like Burroughs’s Mars in much of her work, though there is only an occasional geographical or “historical” continuity linking her various venues. The most memorable result were her series of Eric John Stark stories.
By the 1950s, Brackett began concentrating more on interstellar space operas, including The Starmen and Alpha Centauri—or Die! But these pale beside Brackett’s best single pure-science fiction work, The Long Tomorrow (1955), a slow, impressively warm and detailed epic of two boys and their finally successful attempts to find Bartorstown, where people are secretly re-establishing science and technology in a technophobic, controlled world. After 1955, Brackett generally preferred to work in films and television. She was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2014.
EDMOND HAMILTON (1904–1977) was a married to Leigh Brackett from 1946 until his death. With E.E. “Doc” Smith and Jack Williamson, he was one of the prime movers in the creation and popularization of classic space opera as it first appeared in Pulp magazines from about 1928. His first story, “The Monster-God of Mamurth” for Weird Tales in August 1926, vulgarized the florid weird-science world of Abraham Merritt and only hinted at the exploits to come. This story and others were collected in his first book, The Horror on the Asteroid & Other Tales of Planetary Horror in 1936. But his true significance came with the publication of “Crashing Suns” (August–September 1928 Weird Tales), one of the founding texts of the kind of space opera with which he soon became identified: a Universe-spanning tale, often featuring in early years an Earthman and his comrades (not necessarily human) who discover a cosmic threat to the home galaxy and successfully—either alone, or with the aid of a space armada, or both—combat the aliens responsible for the threat. Though not technically part of the series, “Crashing Suns” is closely linked to the six Tales of the Interstellar Patrol stories, which followed over the next two years. Others of his works contributing to the creation of the form include “The Metal Giants” (December 1926 Weird Tales), “The Comet Doom” (January 1928 Amazing), and “The Universe Wreckers” (May–July 1930 Amazing).
Hamilton also occupied much of his time in the early 1940s with the Captain Future series, published 1940–1950 by Standard Magazines in Captain Future (1940–1944) and afterwards in Startling Stories (1945–1946 and 1950–1951). The original idea for Captain Future had come from Mort Weisinger, a senior editor with the Standard Magazines group. Later, in 1941, Weisinger shifted over to DC Comics and took many of his top writers with him, including Hamilton, who worked for some time in the mid-1940s as a staff writer on Superman, along with Henry Kuttner and others.
His novels include The Monsters of Juntonheim: A Complete Book-Length Novel of Amazing Adventure (January 1941); City at World’s End (1951); The Star of Life (1959) and The Valley of Creation (1964). It is for these novels that he is now mainly remembered. The best of them is probably The Haunted Stars (1960), in which well-characterized humans face a shattering mystery on the moon.
JODY LYNN NYE lists her main career activity as “spoiling cats.” She lives near Chicago with her current cat, Jeremy, and her husband, Bill. She has published more than forty-five books, including collaborations with Anne McCaffrey and Robert Asprin, and over 150 short stories. Her latest books are Rhythm of the Imperium (Baen), Moon Beam (with Travis S. Taylor (Baen), and Myth-Fits (Ace). She also teaches the annual DragonCon Two-Day Writers Workshop.
LINDA NAGATA is a Nebula and Locus-award-winning writer, best known for her high-tech science fiction, including The Red trilogy, a series of near-future military thrillers. The first book in the trilogy, First Light, was a Nebula and John W. Campbell Memorial-award finalist and named as a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2015. Book 3, Going Dark, was a runner-up for the Campbell Memorial award. Her newest novel is the very near-future thriller, The Last Good Man. Linda has lived most of her life in Hawaii, where she’s been a writer, a mom, a programmer of database-driven websites, and lately, an independent publisher. She lives with her husband in their long-time home on the island of Maui.
ALASTAIR REYNOLDS was born in Barry, South Wales, in 1966. Early on in life he discovered a fascination for space and the future, two strands which led him first to a career in astronomy, and more recently his profession as a writer. He has been publishing short fiction for more than a quarter of a century, and recently saw the appearance of his massive retrospective collection, Beyond the Aquila Rift from Subterranean Press and Orion. He is currently finishing his fifteenth solo novel, which takes place in the same universe as “Night Passage”. A committed European, he has lived in England, Wales, Scotland, and the Netherlands, and is married into an extended family with roots in France, Spain, and Germany.
POUL WILLIAM ANDERSON was born in Pennsylvania to Scandinavian parents and the family lived for a time in Denmark before moving back to the United States after the outbreak of the Second World War. They settled in Minnesota where Anderson received a degree in Physics from the University of Minnesota.
He began writing while still an undergraduate and saw his first story published in 1947. He was active throughout the second half of the twentieth century, producing such classic works as the Dominic Flandry books, The High Crusade and his Galactic Patrol stories. He won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards and served as President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America as well as being a founding member of the Society for a Creative Anachronism. In 1988 he was honored as a SFWA Grandmaster. He died in 2001.
New York Times bestselling author A.C. CRISPIN (1950–2013) wrote prolifically in many different tie-in universes, and was a master at filling in the histories of beloved TV and movie characters. She began publishing in 1983 with the Star Trek novel Yesterday’s Son, written in her spare time while working for the US Census Bureau. Shortly thereafter, Tor Books commissioned her to write what is perhaps still her most widely read work, the 1984 novelization of the television miniseries, V, which sold more than a million copies.
For Star Wars, Crispin wrote the bestselling Han Solo Trilogy: The Paradise Snare, The Hutt Gambit, and Rebel Dawn, which tell the story of Han Solo from his early years right up to the moment he walks into the cantina in Star Wars: A New Hope. She wrote three other bestselling Star Trek novels: Time for Yesterday, The Eyes of the Beholders, and Sarek. Her final tie-in novel was the massive Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom, which was published in 2011. She was named a Grandmaster by the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers in 2013.
Her major original science fiction undertaking was the StarBridge series. These books, written solo or in collaboration, centered around a school for young diplomats, translators, and explorers, both alien and human, located on an asteroid far from Earth. Series titles are: StarBridge, Silent Dances, Shadow World, Serpent’s Gift, Silent Songs, Voices of Chaos, and Ancestor’s World.
Crispin was a fierce advocate for writers. She and author Victoria Strauss created and co-chair
ed SFWA’s “scam watchdog” committee, Writer Beware, in 1998.
BENNETT R. COLES served fifteen years as an officer in the Royal Canadian Navy. He thought his career was pretty cool, but that it would be even cooler if it was in SPACE! Lacking the budget to launch his own space navy, he started writing. The Virtues of War trilogy is the result. Coles draws inspiration both from his own time in uniform and from the great authors of military science fiction over the years. Both as an author with Titan Books and as the publisher at Promontory Press, Coles loves the fact that he can pursue his passion for a living. He makes his home in Victoria, Canada, with his wife and two sons.
ANNE McCAFFREY’s first novel was written in Latin class and might have brought her instant fame, as well as an A, if she had written it in that ancient language. Much chastened by teacher and father, she turned to the stage and became a character actress, appearing in the first successful summer music circus in Lambertsville, NJ. She studied voice for nine years and, during that time, became intensely interested in the stage direction of opera and operetta, ending that phase of her experience with the direction of the American premiere of Carl Orff’s Ludus De Nato infante Mirificus in which she also played a witch.
Her working career included Liberty Music Shops and Helena Rubinstein (1947–1952). She married in 1950 and has three children: Alec Anthony, b. 1952, Todd, b. 1956, and Georgeanne, b. 1959.
Anne McCaffrey’s first story was published by Sam Moskowitz in Science Fiction + Magazine and her first novel was published by Ballantine Books in 1967. By the time the three children of her marriage were comfortably in school most of the day, she had already achieved enough success with short stories to devote full time to writing. Her first novel, Restoree, was written as a protest against the absurd and unrealistic portrayals of women in s-f novels in the ’50s and early ’60s. It is, however, in the handling of broader themes and the worlds of her imagination, particularly the two series The Ship Who Sang (which later became the Brainship series) and the fourteen novels about the Dragonriders of Pern that Ms. McCaffrey’s talents as a storyteller are best displayed.
DR. CHARLES E. GANNON’s award-winning Caine Riordan/Terran Republic hard science fiction novels have, as of this writing, all been Nebula finalists and national bestsellers. His epic fantasy series, The Broken World, is forthcoming from Baen Books. He also collaborates with Eric Flint in the NYT and WSJ bestselling Ring of Fire alternate history series. His other novels and short fiction straddle the divide between hard SF and technothrillers, and much of this work includes collaborations in the Starfire, Honorverse, Man-Kzin, and War World universes. He also worked extensively in game design and writing, as well as being a scriptwriter and producer in New York City, where his clients included the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and PBS.
A Distinguished Professor of English and Fulbright Senior Specialist, Gannon’s Rumors of War and Infernal Machines won the 2006 American Library Association Choice Award for Outstanding Book. He is a recipient of five Fulbright Fellowships/Grants and has been a subject matter expert both for national media venues such as NPR and the Discovery Channel, as well as for various intelligence and defense agencies, including the Pentagon, Air Force, Army, Marines, Navy, NATO, DARPA, NRO, DHS, NASA, and several other organizations with which he signed NDAs.
DAVID DRAKE (born 1945) sold his first story (a fantasy) at age twenty. His undergraduate majors at the University of Iowa were history (with honors) and Latin (B.A., 1967). He uses his training in both subjects extensively in his fiction.
David entered Duke Law School in 1967 and graduated five years later (J.D., 1972). The delay was caused by his being drafted into the US Army. He served in 1970 as an enlisted interrogator with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the Blackhorse, in Vietnam and Cambodia. He has used his legal and particularly his military experiences extensively in his fiction also.
David practiced law for eight years; drove a city bus for one year; and has been a full-time freelance writer since 1981. He reads and travels extensively. His website, david-drake.com, will tell you a great deal more as well as permit you to contact him.
JACK CAMPBELL (John G. Hemry) writes the New York Times bestselling Lost Fleet and Lost Stars series, and the “steampunk meets high fantasy” Pillars of Reality series. His most recent books are Vanguard, the first book in The Genesis Fleet, and Daughter of Dragons. John’s works have been published in twelve languages. His short fiction includes a wide variety of works covering time travel, alternate history, space opera, military SF, fantasy, and humor. May 2017 will see his critically-acclaimed Lost Fleet series come to comics for the first time. The Lost Fleet: Corsair—written by Jack Campbell and illustrated by Andre Siregar and Sebastian Cheng—is an all-new comic book from the universe of the best-selling sci-fi novel series. John has also written a fair amount of nonfiction, including articles on real declassified Cold War plans for US military bases on the moon, and “Liberating the Future: Women in the Early Legion” (of Superheroes) in Sequart’s Teenagers From the Future.
John is a retired US Navy officer, who served in a wide variety of jobs including surface warfare (the ship drivers of the Navy), amphibious warfare, anti-terrorism, and intelligence. Being a sailor, he has been known to tell stories about Events Which Really Happened (but cannot be verified by any independent sources). This experience has served him well in writing fiction. He lives in Maryland with his indomitable wife “S” and three great kids (all three on the autism spectrum).
A lifetime military history buff, New York Times bestselling author DAVID WEBER has carried his interest in history into his fiction. In the Honor Harrington series, multiple volumes published by Baen Books, the spirit of both C.S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower and history’s Admiral Nelson are evident. Weber’s other space opera epic, Safehold, from TOR Books is in multiple volumes as well. He has written an epic fantasy, Oath of Swords, and many other science fiction books, including collaborations in the 1632 Ring of Fire universe with Eric Flint, collaborations with John Ringo, Timothy Zahn, Steve White, and many more. He lives in Greenville, South Carolina, with multiple dogs, cats, children, and his lovely wife Sharon and a huge collection of Honor Harrington artwork.
COPYRIGHT AND FIRST PUBLICATION INFORMATION
Editor’s Note/Acknowledgements by Bryan Thomas Schmidt © 2017 Bryan Thomas Schmidt.
“Introduction: Space Opera” by Robert Silverberg © 2017 Agberg, Ltd. Original to this volume.
“Renegat” by Orson Scott Card © 2017 Orson Scott Card. Original to this volume.
“The Waters of Kanly” (Dune) by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson © 2017 Herbert Properties, LLC. Original to this volume.
“The Good Shepherd” (Legion of the Damned) by William C. Dietz © 2017 William C. Dietz. Original to this volume.
“The Game of Rat and Dragon” by Cordwainer Smith. © 1955 by Cordwainer Smith. First published by Galaxy in October 1955. Reprinted by permission of the author’s agent, Eleanor Wood, Spectrum Literary and the author’s estate.
“The Borders of Infinity” (Vorkosigan) by Lois McMaster Bujold. © 1989 Lois McMaster Bujold. First published in Borders of Infinity, October 1989 by Baen Books.
“All in a Day’s Work” (Vatta’s War) by Elizabeth Moon. © 2017 Elizabeth Moon. Original to this volume.
“Last Day of Training” (Lightship Chronicles) by Dave Bara. © 2017 David Bara. Original to this volume.
“The Wages of Honor” (Skolian) by Catherine Asaro. © 2017 Catherine Asaro. Original to this volume.
“Binti” by Nnedi Okorafor. © 2015 Nnedi Okorafor. Originially published in 2015 as a stand-alone novella by TOR.COM Publishing.
“Reflex” (CoDominium) by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. ©1982 by Niven and Pournelle. First published in There Will Be A Star, edited by John F. Carr and J.E. Pournelle, TOR, January 1983.
“How To Be A Barbarian in the Late 25th Century” (Theirs Not To Reason Why) by Jean Johnson. © 2017 G. Jean Johnson.
Original to this volume.
“Stark and the Star Kings” (Eric John Stark) by Leigh Brackett and Edmond Hamilton. © 2005 Estates of Leigh Brackett and Edmond Hamilton. First published in Stark and The Star Kings by Haffner Press, August 2005. Reprinted by permission of the authors’ agent, Eleanor Wood, Spectrum Literary.
“Imperium Imposter” (Imperium) by Jody Lynn Nye. © 2017 Jody Lynn Nye. Original to this volume.
“Region Five” (Red Series) by Linda Nagata. © 2017 Linda Nagata. Original to this volume.
“Night Passage” (Revelation Space) by Alastair Reynolds. © 2017 Alastair Reynolds. Original to this volume.
“Duel on Syrtis” by Poul Anderson. © 1951 Poul Anderson. First published in Planet Stories, March 1951. Reprinted by permission of the author’s agent Chris Lotts.
“Twilight World” (StarBridge) by A.C. Crispin. © 1989 and 2013 A.C. Crispin. Partially adapted from StarBridge (Ace Books 1989); first appeared in this form in Raygun Chronicles, edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt (Every Day Publishing, 2013).
“Twenty Excellent Reasons” (The Astral Saga) by Bennett R. Coles. © 2017 Bennett R. Coles. Original to this volume.
“The Ship Who Sang” by Anne McCaffrey. © 1961 Anne McCaffrey. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1961. Reprinted by permission of the author’s agent, Virginia Kidd Agency.
“Taste of Ashes” (Caine Riardon) by Charles E. Gannon. © 2017 Charles E. Gannon. Original to this volume.
“The Iron Star” by Robert Silverberg. ©1987 by Agberg, Ltd. First published in The Universe, edited by Byron Preiss, Bantam Books. Reprinted by permission of the author and Agberg, Ltd.
Infinite Stars Page 82