Isaac Asimov was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. During his lifetime, Asimov was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke. A prolific writer, he wrote or edited more than 500 books. He also wrote an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. Best known for his hard science fiction, Asimov also wrote mysteries and fantasy, as well as popular science and other non-fiction.
The Sidewise Awards for Alternate History were established in 1995 to recognize the best alternate history stories and novels of the year.
Charles Sheffield, was an English-born mathematician, physicist and science-fiction writer who served as a President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and of the American Astronautical Society.
Gardner Raymond Dozois was an American science fiction author and editor. He was the founding editor of The Year's Best Science Fiction anthologies (1984–2018) and was editor of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine (1986–2004), garnering multiple Hugo and Locus Awards for those works almost every year. He also won the Nebula Award for Best Short Story twice. He was inducted to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame on June 25, 2011.
Ian R. MacLeod is a British science fiction and fantasy writer.
Jack Carroll "Jay" Haldeman II was an American biologist and science-fiction writer. He was the older brother of SF writer and MIT writing professor Joe Haldeman.
Asimov's Science Fiction is an American science fiction magazine edited by Sheila Williams and published by Dell Magazines, which is owned by Penny Press. It was launched as a quarterly by Davis Publications in 1977, after obtaining Isaac Asimov's consent for the use of his name. It was originally titled Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and was quickly successful, reaching a circulation of over 100,000 within a year, and switching to monthly publication within a couple of years. George H. Scithers, the first editor, published many new writers who went on to be successful in the genre. Scithers favored traditional stories without sex or obscenity; along with frequent humorous stories, this gave Asimov's a reputation for printing juvenile fiction, despite its success. Asimov was not part of the editorial team, but wrote editorials for the magazine.
John Joseph Vincent Kessel is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. He is a prolific short story writer, and the author of four solo novels, Good News From Outer Space (1989), Corrupting Dr. Nice (1997), The Moon and the Other (2017), and Pride and Prometheus (2018), and one novel, Freedom Beach (1985) in collaboration with his friend James Patrick Kelly. Kessel is married to author Therese Anne Fowler.
Nancy Anne Kress is an American science fiction writer. She began writing in 1976 but has achieved her greatest notice since the publication of her Hugo- and Nebula-winning novella Beggars in Spain (1991), which became a novel in 1993. She also won the Nebula Award for Best Novella in 2013 for After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, and in 2015 for Yesterday's Kin. In addition to her novels, Kress has written numerous short stories and is a regular columnist for Writer's Digest. She is a regular at Clarion Workshops. During the winter of 2008/09, Nancy Kress was the Picador Guest Professor for Literature at the University of Leipzig's Institute for American Studies in Leipzig, Germany.
Esther Mona Friesner-Stutzman, née Friesner is an American science fiction and fantasy author. She is also a poet and playwright. She is best known for her humorous style of writing, both in the titles and the works themselves. This humor allows her to discuss with broader audiences issues like gender equality and social justice.
James Patrick Kelly is an American science fiction author who has won both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award.
Sheila Williams is an American science fiction editor who is the editor of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine.
Louis Sergio Antonelli was an American speculative fiction author who wrote primarily alternate history, secret history, science fiction, and fantasy. He resided in Clarksville, Texas. Antonelli's stories have been published in print publications based in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada, as well as e-zines based in India and Portugal.
The hypothetical particles tachyons, defined through being faster than light, have inspired many occurrences in fiction. In general, tachyons are a standby mechanism upon which many science fiction authors rely to establish faster-than-light communication, with or without reference to causality issues, as well as a means to achieve faster-than-light travel. Science writer Sidney Perkowitz commented "that the very word "tachyon," because of its unusual Greek-origin spelling and engagingly catchy hard "ch" sound, lends a certain "science-ness" or "science coolness to fiction." Starting in the 1970s, tachyons were used in science-fiction to present a seemingly-plausible explanation for time travel and communication through time. Peter Nicholls, in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, describes Gregory Benford's Timescape (1980) as the first work to use tachyons to this effect "with some care", where scientists send a message to the past trying to change history. Glen Cook's 1985 novel A Matter of Time features a much less stringently described "tachyon generator" to "transmit [both to the past and] to the far future". Uses of the concept for space travel appeared in association with "the Asgard, the benevolent alien race in the Stargate SG-1 television series (1997–2007)", and in the 2001 film K-Pax, which coined the term "tachyonic speeds" for "multiples of light speed". An "unabashed" use appeared already in 1969, where "Bob Shaw's The Palace of Eternity features such delights as a million-ton tachyonic spaceship travelling at 30,000 times the speed of light." In the Star Trek franchise, in addition to facilitating faster-than-light travel, tachyons have been mentioned "for varied purposes, including cloaking a spacecraft, detection" of such cloaking and overcoming defensive shields, which has been regarded as "technobabble" by Mashable contributor Keith Wagstaff: dialogue that implies a scientific explanation, using a term with a real scientific concept behind it, "but really doesn't mean much."
Mary Rosenblum was an American science fiction and mystery author.
Lois Tilton is an American science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and horror writer who has won the Sidewise Award and been a finalist for the Nebula Award. She has also written a number of innovative vampire stories.
Alyxandra Margaret "A. M." Dellamonica is a Canadian science fiction writer who has published over forty short stories in the field since the 1980s. Dellamonica writes in a number of subgenres including science fiction, fantasy, and alternate history. Their stories have been selected for "Year's Best" science fiction anthologies in 2002 and 2007. Dellamonica is non-binary.
Steven R. Boyett, also known as DJ Steve Boyett, is a writer and disc jockey based in Northern California.
Lela E. Buis is an American speculative fiction writer, playwright, poet and artist who was born in Middlesboro, KY. She graduated from Florida State University (FSU) and the Florida Institute of Technology, and worked in engineering for a number of years at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. She currently resides in Tennessee.
The Mammoth Book of Classic Science Fiction: Short Novels of the 1930s is a themed anthology of science fiction short works edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh, the first in a series of six samplers of the field from the 1930s through the 1980s. It was first published in trade paperback by Robinson in June 1988. The first American edition was issued in trade paperback by Carroll & Graf in July of the same year. A hardcover edition was issued under the variant title Great Tales of Classic Science Fiction by Galahad Books in May 1990.
