Frederik Pohl was born in New York City and attended public schools in Brooklyn. More interested in writing than in school, he dropped out of high school in his senior year and took a job with a publishing company. After serving in the United Stated Air Force from 1943 to 1945, he returned to publishing as an editor and literary agent. His first science fiction novels were published in the mid 1960's, some written in collaboration with other writers, others created alone. Since then he has produced a steady flow of novels. Pohl describes his particular kind of science fiction as "cautionary": the novels he writes point out the negative, long range consequences of present actions. Pohl takes… some aspect of contemporary society and projects it into a future time as if to say, "If our society keeps doing this here is what the result will be." He is particularly concerned with rapidly developing technology that is not matched by a corresponding improvement in the quality of living. According to Pohl, science fiction is "the only kind of writing which takes into account the most important fact of life in the world today: change."
Robert Anson Heinlein was born on July 7, 1907 in Butler, Mo. The son of Rex Ivar and Bam Lyle Heinlein, Robert Heinlein had two older brothers, one younger brother, and three younger sisters. Moving to Kansas City, Mo., at a young age, Heinlein graduated from Central High School in 1924 and attended one year of college at Kansas City Community College. Following in his older brother's footsteps, Heinlein entered the Navel Academy in 1925. After contracting pulmonary tuberculosis, of which he was later cured, Heinlein retired from the Navy and married Leslyn Macdonald. Heinlein was said to have held jobs in real estate and photography, before he began working as a staff writer for Upton… Sinclair's EPIC News in 1938. Still needing money desperately, Heinlein entered a writing contest sponsored by the science fiction magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories. Heinlein wrote and submitted the story "Life-Line," which went on to win the contest. This guaranteed Heinlein a future in writing. Using his real name and the pen names Caleb Saunders, Anson MacDonald, Lyle Monroe, John Riverside, and Simon York, Heinlein wrote numerous novels including For Us the Living, Methuselah's Children, and Starship Troopers, which was adapted into a big-budget film for Tri-Star Pictures in 1997. Heinlein died in 1988 from emphysema and other related health problems. Heinlein's remains were scattered from the stern of a Navy warship off the coast of California.
Author Jack Williamson was born in Bisbee, Arizona on April 29, 1908. In the 1950's, he received both his BA and MA degress in English from Eastern New Mexico University. After receiving his PhD from the University of Colorado, he taught linguistics, the modern novel and literary criticism at Eastern New Mexico University until he retired in 1977. At the age of 20, he published his first story, The Metal Man, in a December 1928 issue of Amazing Stories. Since then he has written more than 50 novels and at least 15 short story collections. Some of his best known works are The Humanoids, The Legion of Time, Manseed, and Lifeburst. He also published numerous collaborations with fellow science… fiction author Frederik Pohl. He received numerous awards including the Pilgrim Award from the Science Fiction Research Association, the Hugo Award, and the Nebula Award. He was an inaugural inductee in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame and was named a Grand Master of Science Fiction by the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1976. He died at his home in Portales, New Mexico on November 10, 2006.