Joseph Brassey has lived on both sides of the continental US, and has worked as a craft-store employee, paperboy, factory worker, hospital kitchen gopher, martial arts instructor, singer, and stay-at-home Dad (the last is his favorite job, by far).

Joseph was enlisted as a robotic wordmachine in 47North’s Mongoliad series, and still trains in—and teaches—fencing techniques in his native Tacoma, Washington.

Neal Stephenson is the author of Reamde, Anathem; the three-volume historical epic the Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World); Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age, Zodiac and the iconic Snow Crash, named one of Time magazine's top one hundred all-time best English-language novels.

He lives in Seattle, Washington.,

Greg Bear is one of the world's leading hard SF authors. A multiple Hugo and Nebula award winner, he sold his first short story, at the age of fifteen, to Robert Lowndes's Famous Science Fiction.

His novels Blood Music and Eon are both Gollancz Masterworks. A full-time writer, he lives in Washington with his family.

Nicole Galland's five previous novels are The Fool's Tale; Revenge of the Rose; Crossed; I, Iago, and Godiva.

She writes a cheeky etiquette column for the Martha's Vineyard Times.

She is married to actor Billy Meleady and owns Leuco, a dog of splendid qualities.

Artist Michael Jon Grell quickly made a name for himself in comics by tackling one of its most difficult assignments--the seemingly infinite universe of the Legion of Super-Heroes. From there, Grell joined Dennis O'Neil for a well-received Green Lantern and Green Arrow revival and might have become a regular contributor to the Batman office if his creation WARLORD had not taken off to become DC's most successful fantasy title ever. Grell (whose other works of note include JON SABLE, FREELANCE, STARSLAYER and GREEN ARROW) still writes the occasional BATMAN tale.