Biography
Schmidt was born on February 13, 1969, in Topeka, Kansas. [1] His works sometime incorporate Christian themes. [1] Schmidt's first published works were the short stories in his The North Star Serial, a 2010 series of space opera stories depicting an ongoing war. The Worker Prince, the first novel in his Saga of Davi Rhii series, was published in 2011. The second novel, The Returning, [2] was released the following year in June, two months after his first anthology, Full-Throttle Space Tales 6: Space Battles, was published in April through Flying Pen Press. In 2013, Schmidt edited Beyond the Sun, a space opera anthology from Fairwood Press, and Raygun Chronicles: Space Opera for a New Age from Every Day Publishing. [3] [4]
After a recommendation from Jennifer Brozek, he was asked to edit The Martian . [5] [6] He worked with the author, Andy Weir, to improve the story. [5] [6] In 2014, he was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Professional Editor (short form) for his anthology work, but missed the cutoff for the final ballot by six votes. [n 1] [7] [8] The following year, he and Brozek edited the fantasy adventure anthology, Shattered Shields, published by Baen Books. [9] They were both nominated for the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Editor (short form) for Shattered Shields. [10] [11] His space opera anthology, Mission: Tomorrow, was released by Baen in 2015. [12] Schmidt worked with WordFire Press in 2016 to release the young adult short story anthology Decision Points. The same year he released Galactic Games, a science fiction sports anthology, from Baen.
In addition to The Exodus, the final volume in his Davi Rhii trilogy, Schmidt had six anthologies published in 2017. In March, he co-edited Little Green Men—Attack! with Robin Wayne Bailey. His second WordFire anthology, Maximum Velocity: The Best of the Full-Throttle Space Tales, co-edited with Jennifer Brozek, Carol Hightshoe, David Lee Summers, and Dayton Ward, collected the best stories from the "Full-Throttle Space Tales" series of anthologies. The space opera anthology Infinite Stars and the media tie-in anthology Predator: If It Bleeds (set in the Predator universe), both from Titan Books, were released in October. Infinite Stars received a starred review in Publishers Weekly and was also ranked 15th in the Best Anthology category of the 2018 Locus Awards. [6] [13] [14] That same month, he also released Joe Ledger: Unstoppable, co-edited with Jonathan Maberry), from St. Martin's Press and from Baen The Monster Hunter Files, co-edited with Larry Correia). [15]
The first volume in his John Simon near-future police procedural series, Simon Says, was released in October 2019. Infinite Stars: Dark Frontiers, a follow-up anthology to the 2017 collection, was released through Titan Books in November. The second and third volumes in the John Simon series, The Sideman and Common Source, were released in June and September 2020, respectively. A COVID-19 charity anthology, Surviving Tomorrow, was released in October that year through Aeristic Press. Proceeds from the anthology went to purchase COVID-19 test kits. [16]
Schmidt, with Jonathan Maberry, edited Alien vs. Predator: Ultimate Prey, released in December 2021 from Titan Books. [17] [18] The Hitherto Secret Experiments of Marie Curie, a dark young adult anthology co-edited with Henry Herz, was originally scheduled for a November 2022 release, but was released in April 2023 through Blackstone Publishing. [19] His novel, Shortcut, will be published by Villainous Press, and released in September 2023. [20] He co-edited the Robots Through the Ages anthology with Robert Silverberg. [20]
