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Kevin J. Anderson

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Kevin J. Anderson
Anderson in June 2023 at Origins Game Fair
Anderson in June 2023 at Origins Game Fair
Born (1962-03-27) March 27, 1962 (age 62)
Racine, Wisconsin, U.S.
Pen nameGabriel Mesta, K.J. Anderson
OccupationAuthor
LanguageEnglish
GenreScience fiction, fantasy, horror
Spouse
​
(m. 1991)​
Website
wordfire.com

Kevin James Anderson (born March 27, 1962) is an American science fiction author. He has written spin-off novels for Star Wars, StarCraft, Titan A.E. and The X-Files, and with Brian Herbert is the co-author of the Dune prequel series. His original works include the Saga of Seven Suns series and the Nebula Award–nominated Assemblers of Infinity. He has also written several comic books, including the Dark Horse Star Wars series Tales of the Jedi written in collaboration with Tom Veitch, Dark Horse Predator titles, and The X-Files titles for Topps. Some of Anderson's superhero novels include Enemies & Allies, about the first meeting of Batman and Superman, and The Last Days of Krypton, telling the story of how Superman's planet Krypton came to be destroyed.

Anderson has published over 140 books, over 50 of which have been on US and international bestseller lists, and he has more than 23 million books in print worldwide.

Anderson is working as a professor at Western Colorado University.[1] Anderson has been a Literary Guest of Honor and Keynote Speaker at the Life, the Universe, & Everything professional science fiction and fantasy arts symposium, on at least three occasions: 2016, 2006 and 1993.[2] In 2021, Anderson was inducted into the Colorado Authors Hall of Fame along with Stephen King and James Michener.

Early and personal life

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Kevin J. Anderson was born March 27, 1962, in Racine, Wisconsin, and grew up in Oregon, Wisconsin.[3] According to Anderson, The War of the Worlds greatly influenced him. At the age of eight, he wrote his first story, titled "Injection". At ten, he bought a typewriter and has written ever since. In his freshman year in high school, he submitted his first short story to a magazine, but it took two more years before one of his manuscripts was accepted. When it was accepted, they paid him in copies of the magazine. In his senior year, he sold his first story for money for $12.50.[4]

For 12 years Anderson worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he met fellow writers Rebecca Moesta and Doug Beason. Anderson later married Moesta and frequently coauthors novels with both her and Beason.[4]

Career

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Anderson at Toronto book signing, August 2009

Anderson's first novel, Resurrection, Inc., was published in 1988 and nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel.[5] His 1993 collaboration with Beason, Assemblers of Infinity, was nominated for both a Nebula and Locus Award.[6][7][8] Anderson wrote The X-Files novels Ground Zero (1995), Ruins (1996) and Antibodies (1997). Ground Zero reached #1 on the London Sunday Times Best Seller List and Ruins made the New York Times Best Seller list. Contracted to write novels in the Star Wars expanded universe, Anderson published the Jedi Academy trilogy in 1994, followed by the 1996 novel Darksaber. He and Moesta also wrote the 14-volume Young Jedi Knights series from 1995 to 1998.[6][9][10] As a noted Star Wars novelist, Anderson was a participant in the FidoNet Star Wars Echo, a 1990s bulletin board system forum cited as one of the earliest influential forms of Star Wars on-line fandom.[11][12]

In 1997, Anderson and Brian Herbert signed a $3 million deal with Bantam Books to coauthor a prequel trilogy to the 1965 novel Dune and its five sequels (1969–1985) by Herbert's deceased father, Frank Herbert.[13] Starting with 1999's Dune: House Atreides, the ongoing Dune prequel series has expanded to ten novels to date. In 2011 Publishers Weekly called the series "a sprawling edifice that Frank Herbert's son and Anderson have built on the foundation of the original Dune novels."[14] Anderson and Brian Herbert have also published Hunters of Dune (2006) and Sandworms of Dune (2007), sequels to Frank Herbert's final novel Chapterhouse: Dune (1985) which complete the chronological progression of his original series and wrap up storylines that began with his Heretics of Dune (1984).[15] Between 2011 and 2014, Anderson and Herbert also released their Hellhole trilogy of novels unrelated to Dune.[10]

In 2002, Anderson released the steampunk/adventure novel Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius and was subsequently asked to write The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), a novelization of the film of the same name.[16][17] The following year he also wrote the novelization for the 2004 film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. In 2005, Anderson co-wrote, along with Dean Koontz, the first book in the Frankenstein series called Frankenstein, Prodigal Son.

Between 2002 and 2008, Anderson published a seven-novel original space opera series called The Saga of Seven Suns.[6][10][18] In 2014 he began publishing a sequel trilogy called The Saga of Shadows.[10][19] Anderson published four novels and two short stories in his Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. series between 2012 and 2014.[10][20] In 2012, Anderson coauthored a novelization of Clockwork Angels, an album by the Canadian rock band Rush, with Rush's drummer, Neil Peart. Anderson and Peart reunited in 2015 for a sequel, Clockwork Lives.[20][21]

WordFire Press

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Anderson with his wife Rebecca Moesta in 2004 at Comic Con

In 2011, Anderson and Moesta founded their own publishing imprint, WordFire Press, to reissue some of their out-of-print books in paperback and/or e-book formats. They have subsequently published and reprinted works in various genres, including several out-of-print or previously unpublished novels by Frank Herbert.[10][20]

In 2013, WordFire acquired the reprint rights to the works of Allen Drury, including his 1959 Pulitzer Prize-winning political novel Advise and Consent.[20][22][23][24] That novel, out of print for nearly 15 years, ranked #27 on the 2013 BookFinder.com list of the Top 100 Most Searched for Out of Print Books before WordFire reissued it in February 2014.[22][25] The company also reprinted Advise and Consent's five sequels — A Shade of Difference (1962), Capable of Honor (1966), Preserve and Protect (1968), Come Nineveh, Come Tyre (1973), and The Promise of Joy (1975) — as well as Drury's later novels Mark Coffin, U.S.S. (1979) and Decision (1983).[20][22][23]

WordFire released four previously unpublished novels by Frank Herbert, who died in 1986: High-Opp (2012), Angels' Fall (2013), A Game of Authors (2013), and A Thorn in the Bush (2014). Anderson announced these in his blog.[26][27][28][29] WordFire also reissued several of Herbert's unavailable titles: Destination: Void (1966), The Heaven Makers (1968), Soul Catcher (1972), The Godmakers (1972), and Direct Descent (1980) — as well as Man of Two Worlds (1986), an out-of-print novel cowritten by Herbert and his son Brian.[20] WordFire also possesses non-US/Canadian e-book rights to some of Anderson's own collaborations with Brian Herbert, the Prelude to Dune trilogy (1999–2001), as well as Anderson's Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. series of novels.[20]

Awards, records and nominations

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Works

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Main article: Kevin J. Anderson bibliography

Anderson has published over 120 books, over 50 of which have been on US and international bestseller lists, and he has more than 23 million books in print worldwide.[6][10]

References

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  1. ^ "Kevin J. Anderson". Archived from the original on March 2, 2022. Retrieved June 20, 2022.
  2. ^ "Life, the Universe, & Everything 34: The Marion K. "Doc" Smith Symposium on Science Fiction and Fantasy" (PDF). LTUE Press. February 1, 2016. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 13, 2021. Retrieved September 14, 2021.
  3. ^ A Conversation With Kevin J. Anderson Part 1 of 3 Archived September 20, 2018, at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 2018-09-19.
  4. ^ a b "Kevin J. Anderson Bios". WordFire.com (Anderson's website). Archived from the original on October 30, 2017. Retrieved February 21, 2015.
  5. ^ "1988 Bram Stoker Award Nominees & Winners". Horror Writers Association. Archived from the original on November 15, 2017. Retrieved February 21, 2015.
  6. ^ a b c d "ConDFW XIII 2014: Kevin J. Anderson Profile". ConDFW.org. March 7, 2013. Archived from the original on November 27, 2013.
  7. ^ "The Locus Index to SF Awards: Nebula Nominees List". Locus. Archived from the original on April 24, 2012. Retrieved February 18, 2015.
  8. ^ "The Locus Index to SF Awards: 1994 Locus Awards". Locus. Archived from the original on October 21, 2013. Retrieved February 18, 2015.
  9. ^ Goldstein, Rich (March 26, 2014). "Is the New 'Star Wars' Trilogy the Story of the Solo Twins and Darth Caedus?". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on February 22, 2015. Retrieved February 21, 2015.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g "Kevin J. Anderson: Panelist/Author". FantasyCon. Archived from the original on February 21, 2015. Retrieved February 21, 2015.
  11. ^ Schwab, Mike, ed. (December 1995). "Out of the Maw: volume 1, issue #2". TheForce.net. Archived from the original on January 5, 2016. Retrieved February 22, 2015. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  12. ^ Knight, Chris (May 9, 2001). "In The Beginning... Star Wars Comes To A Wired World". TheForce.net. Archived from the original on January 2, 2016. Retrieved February 22, 2015.
  13. ^ Quinn, Judy (November 17, 1997). "Bantam Pays $3M for Dune Prequels by Herbert's Son". Publishers Weekly. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved February 6, 2014.
  14. ^ "Fiction Book Review: Sisterhood of Dune". Publishers Weekly. November 14, 2011. Archived from the original on December 3, 2013. Retrieved November 21, 2013.
  15. ^ Itzkoff, Dave (September 24, 2006). "Across the Universe: Dune Babies". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 24, 2015. Retrieved April 14, 2018.
  16. ^ "SciFi Wire: Anderson Joins League". SciFi.com. November 12, 2002. Archived from the original on November 15, 2007. Retrieved February 22, 2015.
  17. ^ "LXG Novelization Update". IGN. March 11, 2003. Archived from the original on February 18, 2012. Retrieved February 22, 2015.
  18. ^ "Fiction Book Review: Hidden Empire: The Saga of Seven Suns Book 1". Publishers Weekly. July 1, 2002. Archived from the original on December 3, 2013. Retrieved November 21, 2013.
  19. ^ "Fiction Book Review: The Dark Between the Stars: The Saga of Shadows, Book 1". Publishers Weekly. April 28, 2014. Archived from the original on October 17, 2014. Retrieved June 12, 2014.
  20. ^ a b c d e f g Simon, Phil (July 16, 2013). "Zombie Detectives and the Changing Face of Publishing". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on January 15, 2015. Retrieved January 14, 2015.
  21. ^ Simon, Phil (January 6, 2014). "Thinking Big: Rush's Clockwork Angels Concept Album to Be Graphic Novel". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on February 18, 2015. Retrieved June 5, 2015.
  22. ^ a b c Simon, Phil (May 28, 2014). "Classic Politics: The Works of Allen Drury Now Back in Print". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on January 14, 2015. Retrieved January 14, 2015.
  23. ^ a b Karl, Jonathan (May 23, 2014). "Book Review: Allen Drury". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on January 21, 2015. Retrieved January 21, 2015.
  24. ^ "Pulitzer Prize Winners: Fiction (1948-present)". Pulitzer.org. Archived from the original on May 30, 2014. Retrieved January 14, 2015.
  25. ^ "11th Annual BookFinder.com Report: Out-of-print and in demand". BookFinder.com. 2013. Archived from the original on June 6, 2014. Retrieved January 14, 2015.
  26. ^ Anderson, Kevin J. (March 16, 2012). "New, never-published Frank Herbert novel now available: HIGH-OPP". KJAblog.com. Archived from the original on January 13, 2015. Retrieved January 14, 2015.
  27. ^ Anderson, Kevin J. (May 22, 2013). "New, Previously Unpublished Frank Herbert Novel, ANGELS' FALL". KJAblog.com. Archived from the original on September 16, 2014. Retrieved January 14, 2015.
  28. ^ Anderson, Kevin J. (July 9, 2013). "A GAME OF AUTHORS — another lost Frank Herbert novel". KJAblog.com. Archived from the original on September 16, 2014. Retrieved January 14, 2015.
  29. ^ Anderson, Kevin J. (February 1, 2015). "More New Frank Herbert Work". KJAblog.com. Archived from the original on February 10, 2015. Retrieved February 22, 2015.
  30. ^ "2015 Hugo Awards". TheHugoAwards.org. April 4, 2015. Archived from the original on May 9, 2020. Retrieved April 6, 2015.
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