Marc Stiegler

In the age of the dinosaurs, which is to say, in the previous century during the 80s and 90s, I was a science fiction author. During that brief and happy interlude, among other things I wrote Valentina which became a finalist for the Hugo Award, David's Sling which became a finalist for the Prometheus Award, and The Gentle Seduction which was considered by some founders of the field of nanotech to be the best story ever written about the consequences of their work. Much of that writing was done during interludes between working at and managing various Silicon Valley startup and software companies. Then disaster struck: I got a normal job as a research scientist. I spent all my words writing tech reports and academic journal articles. No strength remained at the end of the day for sf. Then I retired about the same time as a new era of radicalized politics came upon us, an era that needed a new kind of author: one who could, hopefully with a light and humorous touch, explore through near-future sf the consequences of these competing versions of America. In this fire was forged my largest work, the BrainTrust series. The first three books were nominated for the Prometheus Award, and the fourth and fifth were both finalists. Having contributed what I could to that conflict of futures, I now launch on a new journey, with a series of thrillers about a world in which the conspiracy theories are promulgated as gruesome psych experiments by far darker and more dangerous clandestine organizations. Could the world really in this much trouble? Hopefully not. And yet... --marcs