Stephen King. Richard Matheson. C. S. Lewis. Lewis and fellow novelist J. R. R. Tolkien were close friends. Both authors served on the English faculty at Oxford University, and both were active in the informal Oxford literary group known as the "Inklings". According to his memoir Surprised by Joy, Lewis had been baptized in the Church of Ireland (part of the Anglican Communion) at birth, but fell away from his faith during his adolescence. In 1956, he married the American writer Joy Davidman, 17 years his junior, who died four years later of cancer at the age of 45. Lewis's works have been translated into more than 30 languages and have sold millions of copies. Biography Childhood Little Lea, home of the Lewis family from 1905 to 1930 Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland, on 29 November 1898.[2] His father was Albert James Lewis (1863–1929), a solicitor whose father, Richard, had come to Ireland from Wales during the mid-19th century.
"The New House is almost a major character in my story. "My Irish life" First World War. J. R. R. Tolkien. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE (/ˈtɒlkiːn/ TOL-keen;[a] 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. He served as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, from 1925 to 1945 and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, Oxford from 1945 to 1959.[1] He was at one time a close friend of C.
S. Lewis—they were both members of the informal literary discussion group known as the Inklings. Tolkien was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972. In 2008, The Times ranked him sixth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".[7] Forbes ranked him the 5th top-earning "dead celebrity" in 2009.[8] Biography Family origins Most of Tolkien's paternal ancestors were craftsmen. George R. R. Martin. Early life[edit] George Raymond Martin (he later adopted the Confirmation name Richard at the age of 13)[5] was born on September 20, 1948,[6] in Bayonne, New Jersey,[7] the son of longshoreman Raymond Collins Martin and his wife Margaret Brady Martin. He has two younger sisters, Darleen and Janet. Martin's father was half Italian, while his mother was half Irish; [8] his family also contains German, English, and French ancestry. The family first lived in a house on Broadway, belonging to Martin's great-grandmother.
In 1953 they moved to a federal housing project near the Bayonne docks. During his childhood, his whole world consisted pretty much of "First Street to Fifth Street", between his grade school and his home; this limited world made him want to travel and experience other places, but the only way of doing so was through his imagination, and he became a voracious reader. In 1970 Martin earned a B. Career[edit] A Song of Ice and Fire[edit] HBO series production[edit] Themes[edit]
Terry Goodkind. Biography[edit] Goodkind was born in 1948,[1] and his home town was Omaha, Nebraska.[7] In 1983 Goodkind moved with his wife Jeri to a house he built in Maine, later making his residence on the coast of Lake Las Vegas, Nevada his primary home.[7] Goodkind has dyslexia, which initially dissuaded him from any interest in writing. Before starting his career as a writer, Goodkind built cabinets and violins and was a marine and wildlife artist,[7] selling his paintings in galleries.[3] In 1993, during the construction of his home on the forested Mount Desert Island off the coast of Maine with his wife Jeri, he began to write his first novel, Wizard's First Rule, and his writing career was launched with its publication in 1994.[8] Goodkind has competed in various forms of amateur and semi-professional auto racing and currently drives a Radical SR8 SM-500 race car for his own Rahl Racing team.[9] Career[edit] Genre and influences[edit] Criticism[edit] Published works[edit] Related novels.
Terry Pratchett. Pratchett was the UK's best-selling author of the 1990s,[6][7] and has sold over 85 million books worldwide in 37 languages.[8][9] He is currently the second most-read writer in the UK, and seventh most-read non-US author in the US.[10] Pratchett was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1998 and was knighted for services to literature in the 2009 New Year Honours.[11][12] In 2001 he won the annual Carnegie Medal for The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, the first Discworld book marketed for children.[13][14] He received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2010. In December 2007, Pratchett announced that he was suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's disease.[15] Subsequently he made a substantial public donation to the Alzheimer's Research Trust,[16] and filmed a programme chronicling his experiences with the disease for the BBC.
Background[edit] Early life[edit] Early career[edit] Current life[edit] Alzheimer's disease[edit] Interests[edit] The man who foresaw science fiction. It is September 1, 2660, and a genius sits in his study, resting up prior to a remarkable display of his scientific prowess. Tomorrow he will demonstrate to scientists that a dog three years technically dead, but preserved with rare elements, can be resuscitated back to life by a simple blood transfusion. He stretches, revealing a huge frame, much taller than the average human, his height approaching that of extraterrestrials. "His physical superiority, however, was as nothing compared to his gigantic mind," explained his biographer. "He was Ralph 124C 41+, one of the greatest living scientists and one of the ten men on the whole planet earth permitted to use the Plus sign after his name.
" So begins Hugo Gernsback's nearly century-old novel, Ralph 124C 41+: A Romance of the Year 2660. And romantic it is. "Dearest," Alice declares upon awakening. Indeed, Ralph's creator took it upon himself to foresee for everyone. Despite all this, few sci-fi fans take Ralph 124C 41+ seriously today. David Brin's Official Web Site: "Survival of the Fittest Ideas" David Brin. Glen David Brin (born October 6, 1950) is an American scientist and award-winning author of science fiction. He has received the Hugo,[1][2] Locus,[3][4][5] Campbell[6] and Nebula Awards.[7] His Campbell Award winning novel The Postman was adapted as a feature film and starred Kevin Costner in 1997.
David Brin's nonfiction book The Transparent Society won the Freedom of Speech Award of the American Library Association and the McGannon Communication Award. Early life and education[edit] Brin was born in Glendale, California in 1950. His ancestors come from Poland, from the area around Konin. His grandfather was drafted into the Russian army and fought in the Russian-Japanese War of 1905.[8] In 1973, David Brin graduated from the California Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in astrophysics.[9] At the University of California, San Diego, he earned a Master of Science in applied physics in 1978 and a Doctor of Philosophy in space science in 1981. Career[edit] Bibliography[edit] Arthur C. Clarke. Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS (Sri Lankabhimanya Arthur Charles Clarke) (16 December 1917 – 19 March 2008) was a British science fiction writer, science writer,[3] inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host.[4] Clarke was a lifelong proponent of space travel.
In 1934 while still a teenager, he joined the British Interplanetary Society. In 1945, he proposed a satellite communication system—an idea that, in 1963, won him the Franklin Institute's Stuart Ballantine Medal.[7][8] Later he was the chairman of the British Interplanetary Society from 1946–47 and again in 1951–53.[9][10] Clarke was also a science writer, who was both an avid populariser of space travel and a futurist of uncanny ability, who won a Kalinga Prize (award given by Unesco for popularising science) in 1961. Clarke emigrated to Sri Lanka in 1956, largely to pursue his interest in scuba diving.[12] That year he discovered the underwater ruins of the ancient Koneswaram temple in Trincomalee. Postwar[edit] Robert A. Heinlein. Robert Anson Heinlein (/ˈhaɪnlaɪn/ HYN-lyn;[1][2][3] July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers",[4] he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre in his time.
He set a standard for scientific and engineering plausibility, and helped to raise the genre's standards of literary quality. He was one of the first science fiction writers to break into mainstream magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post in the late 1940s. He was one of the best-selling science fiction novelists for many decades, and he, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke are often considered to be the "Big Three" of science fiction authors.[5][6] A notable writer of science fiction short stories, Heinlein was one of a group of writers who came to prominence under the editorship of John W.
Life[edit] Birth and childhood[edit] [edit] California[edit] In 1934, Heinlein was discharged from the Navy due to pulmonary tuberculosis. Isaac Asimov.