Stephen Coonts was born on July 19, 1946 and grew up in Buckhannon, West Virginia. He received an A.B. degree in political science from West Virginia University in 1968. He entered the U.S. Navy and received his Navy wings in August of 1969. He made two combat cruises aboard the USS Enterprise. After the Vietnam War, he served as a flight instructor aboard the USS Nimitz. He left active duty in 1977 and received a law degree from the University of Colorado School of Law in 1979. He went to West Virginia to practice and later, to Colorado to work as a staff attorney for an oil company. Coonts published his first novel, Flight of the Intruder, in 1986, which was adapted as into a film in… 1991. Since then he has written more than 20 books including ones in the Jake Grafton Novel series, Saucer series, Deep Black series, and Tommy Carmellini series. He also published a work of nonfiction in 1992 called The Cannibal Queen and edited an anthology of true flying stories, War in the Air, in 1996. The U.S. Naval Institute honored him with its Author of the Year Award in 1986 for his novel, Flight of the Intruder.
Dale Brown was born on November 2, 1956 in Buffalo, New York. He graduated from Penn State University with a degree in Western European history, where he wrote a column for the University's newspaper, The Daily Collegian. He went on to freelance for computer magazines, such as Run and Compute's Gazette for Commodore. He received an Air Force Commission in 1978 and while there, he received the Air Force Commendation Medal, the Combat Crew Medal and a Marksmanship Ribbon. He also wrote for several military base newspapers while he was still enlisted. He left the Air Force as a Captain and remains a multi-engine and instrument rated private pilot. He is a director and volunteer pilot for… AirLifeLine, a nonprofit national medical transport for needy people who cannot afford to travel for medical attention. He is the author of several series including Dale Brown's Dreamland and, Patrick McLanahan. Dreamland. His title Tiger's Claw made The New York Times Best Seller List for 2012.
Tom Clancy was born in Baltimore, Maryland on April 12, 1947. He graduated with a degree in English from Loyola College in 1969, became an insurance agent, and in 1973 became the owner of an insurance agency. It was not until 1980 that he started writing novels. His works include Red Storm Rising, The Cardinal of the Kremlin, The Sum of All Fears, Rainbow Six, Dead or Alive, and Threat Vector. His books The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, and Clear and Present Danger were adapted into major motion pictures. He also wrote nonfiction books including Into the Storm: A Study in Command, Submarine, Armored Cav, Fighter Wing, Airborne, and Reality Check: What's Going on Out There? He died on… October 2, 2013 at the age of 66. His last book, Command Authority, co-authored with Mark Greaney, was published posthumously in December 2013 and made the New York Times bestseller list.
A direct descendant of the composer Johann Sebastian Bach, Richard Bach was born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1936. He attended Long Beach State College in 1955 and had a successful career in aviation, as an Air Force pilot, a flight instructor, an aviation mechanic, and an editor for Flying magazine. Jonathan Livingston Seagull, the novel that made him famous, was written as the result of a vision. Halfway through the book, the vision disappeared and, finding that he was unable to continue, Bach, put the novel aside. When the vision reappeared, Bach finished the work. Jonathan Livingston Seagull, published in 1972, was an unexpected success and became the best-selling book in the United… States for that year. The book is heavily influenced by Bach's love of flying and provides a marvelous inspirational message. The Bridge Across Forever: A Love Story, One, Messiah's Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul (2004), and Hypnotizing Maria (2009) are some of his other novels that blend inspiration, love, fantasy, and hope. In recent years Bach has written Thank Your Wicked Parents: Blessings from a Difficult Childhood (2012), Rainbow Ridge and Travels with Puff: A Gentle Game of Life and Death (2013), NiceTiger,
The most famous fictional detective in the world is Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. However, Doyle was, at best, ambivalent about his immensely successful literary creation and, at worst, resentful that his more "serious" fiction was relatively ignored. Born in Edinburgh, Doyle studied medicine from 1876 to 1881 and received his M.D. in 1885. He worked as a military physician in South Africa during the Boer War and was knighted in 1902 for his exceptional service. Doyle was drawn to writing at an early age. Although he attempted to enter private practice in Southsea, Portsmouth, in 1882, he soon turned to writing in his spare time; it eventually became his profession. As a Liberal… Unionist, Doyle ran, unsuccessfully, for Parliament in 1903. During his later years, Doyle became an avowed spiritualist. Doyle sold his first story, "The Mystery of the Sasassa Valley," to Chambers' Journal in 1879. When Doyle published the novel, A Study in Scarlet in 1887, Sherlock Holmes was introduced to an avid public. Doyle is reputed to have used one of his medical professors, Dr. Joseph Bell, as a model for Holmes's character. Eventually, Doyle wrote three additional Holmes novels and five collections of Holmes short stories. A brilliant, though somewhat eccentric, detective, Holmes employs scientific methods of observation and deduction to solve the mysteries that he investigates. Although an "amateur" private detective, he is frequently called upon by Scotland Yard for assistance. Holmes's assistant, the faithful Dr. Watson, provides a striking contrast to Holmes's brilliant intellect and, in Doyle's day at least, serves as a character with whom the reader can readily identify. Having tired of Holmes's popularity, Doyle even tried to kill the great detective in "The Final Problem" but was forced by an outraged public to resurrect him in 1903. Although Holmes remained Doyle's most popular literary creation, Doyle wrote prolifically in other genres, including historical adventure, science fiction, and supernatural fiction. Despite Doyle's sometimes careless writing, he was a superb storyteller. His great skill as a popular author lay in his technique of involving readers in his highly entertaining adventures.