Alan Dean Foster has written in a variety of genres, including hard science fiction, fantasy, horror, detective, western, historical, and contemporary fiction.

He is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Approaching Storm and the popular Pip & Flinx novels, as well as novelizations of several films, including Transformers, Star Wars, the first three Aliens films, and Alien Nation.

His novel Cyber Way won the Southwest Book Award for Fiction, the first science fiction work ever to do so. Foster and his wife, JoAnn Oxley, live in Prescott, Arizona.

John Shirley was born in Houston and now lives in Vancouver, Washington. He is the author of numerous novels and books of short stories, and won the Bram Stoker Award for his collection Black Butterflies. His novels include the Specialist books (under the name John Cutter), The Brigade, Bleak History, the A Song Called Youth trilogy, and a novel of Wyatt Earp as a young lawman, Wyatt in Wichita. He has also written television, movies, and songs.