Science fiction author Spider Robinson was born in the Bronx, New York on November 24, 1948. He received a Bachelor of Arts in English from the State University of New York. He began writing professionally in 1972 and has won numerous awards including three Hugos, one Nebula, and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. He is best known for his Callahan stories and for the Stardance Sequence, which he co-wrote with his wife Jeanne Robinson. He was selected by the Heinlein Prize Trust to write Variable Star, a novel based on a 1955 outline created by Robert A. Heinlein. He also worked as a book reviewer for Galaxy, Analog, and New Destinies magazines and his opinion column Future… Tense has appeared in The Globe and Mail since 1996. In 2001, he released Belaboring the Obvious, a CD featuring original music. He currently lives in Bowen Island, Brisith Columbia, Canada with his wife.
Noel Barber has enchanted millions of readers with his six bestselling novels. In these powerfully exotic novels he drew upon his own experience as one of the leading foreign correspondents from the 40s to the 60s working on the Daily Mail. He was the first Briton to reach the South Pole since Scott, was stabbed five times while covering the wars in Morocco and was shot during the Hungarian uprising. He died in 1988.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. The Science Fiction Writers of America named Heinlein its first Grand Master in 1974, presented 1975. Officers and past presidents of the Association select a living writer for lifetime achievement. Also, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted Heinlein in 1998. 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.