KEVIN J. ANDERSON has spent a lot of time in a galaxy far, far away. He is the author of the STAR WARS: The Jedi Academy trilogy and the STAR WARS novel, Darksaber, as well as the science fiction novels Climbing Olympus, Resurrection, Inc., and several others with Doug Beason. He has edited two other STAR WARS anthologies, Tales from Jabba’s Palace and Tales of the Bounty Hunters. He has worked for ten years as a technical writer at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He is married to writer Rebecca Moesta.
Author of twelve books—eight with Cantina editor Kevin J. Anderson and four on his own—DOUG BEASON is an accomplished short-story writer, appearing in such publications as Analog, Amazing, Full Spectrum, SF Age, and others. A Ph.D. physicist, Doug has served on a presidential commission with astronaut Tom Stafford to develop plans for the United States to return to the Moon and go on to Mars. He worked at the White House for the President’s Science Advisor under both the Bush and Clinton administrations. As a lieutenant colonel in the USAF, he is currently an associate professor and director of research at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
M. SHAYNE BELL grew up on a ranch in Idaho. His first novel, Nicoji, was released in 1991 by Baen Books. His short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Amazing Stories, and anthologies including Simulations: Fifteen Tales of Virtual Reality, Hotel Andromeda, and Under African Skies. He also edited an anthology of stories set in Utah by all the SF writers from or living in Utah, Washed by a Wave of Wind. His poetry was nominated for the 1989 Science Fiction Poetry Association Rhysling Award. He writes medical software documentation. In 1987 he was awarded first place in the Writers of the Future Contest. In 1991 he received a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
He lived in Brazil for two years in the 1970s, where he first saw Star Wars in a crowded theater in Campinas—the only movie he saw during the entire two years. He could not understand the English through the bad sound system and had to resort to reading the Portuguese subtities.
DAVID BISCHOFF is the author of over forty SF/horror/fantasy and mystery novels and several dozen short stories. His most recent efforts include The Judas Cross, with Charles Sheffield (Warner/Aspect), Dr. Dimension, with John de Chancie (ROC Books), and the New York Times bestselling Star Trek: The Next Generation novel, Grounded. He lives in Eugene, Oregon.
A. C. CRISPIN is the author of several Star Trek novels, including Yesterday’s Son, its sequel, Time for Yesterday (classic Trek), and The Eyes of the Beholders (Next Generation). She is the creator, author, and co-author of the StarBridge series: Starbridge, Silent Dances, Shadow World, Serpent’s Gift, and Silent Songs (ACE Books). In addition, she has co-authored two fantasy novels with Andre Norton: Gryphon’s Eyrie and Songsmith (TOR Books).
Ms. Crispin is a frequent guest at science fiction conventions, where she often teaches writers’ workshops. She currently serves as the Eastern regional director of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. A Maryland resident, she lives with her teenage son Jason, two horses, and three cats. In her spare time (what’s that?) she enjoys trail riding, swimming, sailing, hiking, and reading.
KENNETH C. FLINT of Omaha, Nebraska, is to date the author of fifteen novels. All are works of adventure/fantasy, many of which are based upon ancient Celtic legends and myths.
From her earliest years BARBARA HAMBLY found fantasy and science fiction far more interesting than reality in the modest California town where she grew up. She attended college at the University of California in Riverside and spent one year at the University of Bordeaux in France. After obtaining a master’s degree in medieval history, she held a variety of jobs: model, clerk, high school teacher, karate instructor (she holds a black belt in Shotokan Karate), technical writer, mostly in quest of a job that would leave her with enough time to write. Finally, in 1982 her first novel was published by Ballantine/Del Rey.
Her novels are mostly sword-and-sorcery fantasy, though she has also written historical whodunits, two vampire novels, and novels and novelizations from television shows, notably Beauty and the Beast and Star Trek. She edited an anthology of original vampire stories, Sisters of the Night, and her STAR WARS novel, Children of the Jedi, was released in April 1995. Her interests besides writing include dancing, painting, historical and fantasy costuming, and occasionally carpentry. She resides in a big, ugly house in Los Angeles with the two cutest Pekingese in the world.
REBECCA MOESTA is the co-author, with Kevin J. Anderson, of the series of STAR WARS adventures for young readers, Young Jedi Knights. She is currently the co-editor of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Forum. She holds a master of science degree in business administration from Boston University and works as a technical writer and editor at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
DANIEL KEYS MORAN claims he has never done anything or been anywhere interesting. He is the author of the wildly popular Tales of the Continuing Time, and does in fact very much resemble the character Trent from those books, except that he is handsomer, wittier, and a much better basketball player.
He is extremely pleased to have named, six years after the fact, the Cantina Bar song from Star Wars. It’s now called, of course, “Mad About Me.”
JERRY OLTION has published stories in most of the major science fiction magazines and various anthologies. His story “The Love Song of Laura Morrison” won the Analog reader’s choice award for best short story of 1987. His novels include Frame of Reference (Questar 1987) and two books, Alliance and Humanity, in the Isaac Asimov’s Robot City series. His short-story collection, Love Songs of a Mad Scientist, was published by Hypatia Press. He is also the originator of the Jerry Oltion Really Good Story Award for achievement in science fiction and fantasy.
JUDITH and GARFIELD REEVES-STEVENS have been a writing team since 1986. In education, they are authors of a series of science and technology textbooks for children, as well as interactive reading and writing computer programs. In fiction, they have written three Star Trek novels, the first novel in the Alien Nation series, and have created their own action-adventure fantasy series in The Chronicles of Galen Sword. Their other writing credits range from comic books to episodes of Beyond Reality, The Legend of Prince Valiant, and Batman: The Animated Series. For the 1994–95 television season, the Reeves-Stevenses have helped develop and are executive story editors for the animated science fiction series Phantom 2040, a futuristic updating of Lee Falk’s classic costumed hero.
In 1977, at age twenty-three, JENNIFER ROBERSON spent her entire summer in a movie theater. The ritual was simple: She and a friend would find a “rookie,” haul him or her off to the theater, and relive vicariously the thrill of viewing Star Wars for the first time. This ritual served two purposes: It provided a fix for Roberson’s addiction, and it got others hooked as well.
Seven years later DAW Books published her fantasy novel, Shapechangers, the first volume in an eight-book series tided Chronicles of the Cheysuli. Roberson has also published the Sword-Dancer saga as well as short fiction in magazines, anthologies, and collections, and a bestselling historical reinterpretation of the Robin Hood legend emphasizing Marian’s point of view, tided Lady of the Forest. Her projects have included a hardcover political intrigue-fantasy trilogy, Shade and Shadow, and a historical novel set in seventeenth-century Scotland.
Intending to target the young-adult market, KATHY TYERS started writing science fiction in 1983. Bantam Books asked her to rewrite her space adventure Firebird as an adult release in 1986. Her other books include Fusion Fire (1988), Crystal Witness (1989), Shivering World (1991), Exploring the Northern Rockies (1991), and, forthcoming, The Springhill Aliens. The 1994 release of STAR WARS: The Truce at Bakura marked her return to space opera for all ages.
A flutist and Irish harper, Kathy performs and records semiprofessionally with her husband, Mark. They have one son and live in Bozeman, Montana.
MARTHA VEITCH is a writer and stained-glass artist.
TOM VEITCH wrote STAR WARS: Dark Empire and STAR WARS: Tales of the Jedi for Dark Horse Comics. He also collaborated with Kevin J. Anderson on STAR WARS: Dark Lords of the Sith, a series continuing the saga of the ancient Jedi begun in Tales of the Jedi.
DAVE WOLVERTON is the author of several novels, including STAR WARS: The Courtship of Princess Leia, Serpent Catch, Path of the Hero, and On My Way to Paradise. In 1986 he won the grand prize for the Writers of the Future contest. He has worked as a prison guard, missionary, business manager, editor, and technical writer.
TIMOTHY ZAHN grew up near Chicago, studied physics in college and grad school, and spent the first forty years of his life in the Midwest. With such a background, it was practically inevitable that he would settle placidly into a standard respectable middle-class profession and standard respectable middle-class life.
Somewhere along the way, he took an unlikely off-ramp.
Writing science fiction as a hobby to relax from long bouts of work on his doctoral-thesis project probably would have stayed a hobby—except that in 1979 his advisor suddenly died, leaving him with a project that wasn’t going anywhere. So in 1980 he took a deep breath and set off on a full-time writing career.
Since then he has published over a dozen novels and over fifty short stories, including the Hugo-winning novella “Cascade Point.” The publication of his STAR WARS novels altered his life from one of comfortable obscurity to one of international bemusement. It also permitted him to exchange the corn fields of Illinois for the ocean beaches of Oregon.