Stan Nicholls is the author of many novels and short stories but is best-known for the internationally acclaimed Orcs: First Blood series. His journalism has appeared in the Guardian, the Independent, the Daily Mirror, Time Out, Sight and Sound, Rolling Stone, SFX and Locus among many others. Stan has worked for a number of specialist and general bookshops and was the first manager of the London branch of Forbidden Planet. He lives in the West Midlands with his wife, the writer Anne Gay.