IFPATIENCE WAS A VIRTUE, THE KRAANG'S INFINITE VIRTUE WASnow within sight of the ultimate prize.So far, so good, thought the Kraang.

About the Author.

jackL.chalker was born in baltimore, maryland, on December 17, 1944. He began reading at an early age and naturally gravitated to what are still his twin loves: science fiction and history. While still in high school, Chalker be-gan writing for the amateur science-fiction press and in 1960 launched the Hugo-nominated amateur magazineMi-rage. A year later, he founded The Mirage Press, which grew into a major specialty publishing company for nonfic-tion and reference books about science fiction and fantasy. During this time, he developed correspondence and friend-ships with many leading SF and fantasy authors and editors, many of whom wrote for his magazine and his press. He is an internationally recognized expert on H. P. Lovecraft and on the specialty press in SF and fantasy.

After graduating with twin majors in history and English from Towson State College in 1966, Chalker taught high school history and geography in the Baltimore city public schools with time out to serve with the 135thAir Com-mando Group, Maryland Air National Guard, during the Vietnam era, and, as a sideline, sound engineered some of the period's outdoor rock concerts. He received a graduate degree in the esoteric field of the History of Ideas from Johns Hopkins University in 1969.

His first novel,A Jungle of Stars, was published in 1976, and two years later, with the major popular success of his novelMidnight at the Well of Souls, he quit teaching to be-come a full-time professional novelist. That same year, he married Eva C. Whitley on a ferryboat in the middle of the Susquehanna River and moved to rural western Maryland. Their first son, David, was born in 1981.

Chalker is an active conservationist; a traveler who has been through all fifty states and in dozens of foreign coun-tries; and a member of numerous local and national organi-zations ranging from the Sierra Club to the American Film Inst.i.tute, the Maryland Academy of Sciences, and the Washington Science Fiction a.s.sociation, to name a few. He retains his interest in consumer electronics, has his own sat-ellite dish, and frequently reviews computer hardware and software for national magazines. For five years, until the magazine's demise, he had a regular column on science fan-tasy publishing inFantasy Review, and continues to write a column on computers forS-100 Journal. He is a three-term past treasurer of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, a noted speaker on science fiction at numerous colleges and universities as well as a past lecturer at the Smithsonian and National Inst.i.tutes of Health, and a well-known auctioneer of science fiction and fantasy art, having sold over five million dollars' worth to date.

Chalker has received many writing awards, including the Hamilton-Brackett Memorial Award for his "Well World" books, the Gold Medal of the prestigiousWest Coast Re-view of Books forSpirits of Flux and Anchor, the Dedalus Award, and the E.E. Smith Skylark Award for his career writings. He is also a pa.s.sionate lover of steamboats and particularly ferry boats, and has ridden over three hundred ferries in the U.S. and elsewhere.

He lives with his wife, Eva, sons, David and Steven, a Pekingese named Mavra Chang, and Stonewall J.

p.u.s.s.ycat, the world's dumbest cat, in the Catoctin Mountain region of western Maryland, near Camp David. A short story collec-tion with autobiographical commentary,Dance Band on the t.i.tanic, was published by Del Rey Books in 1988.