ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Randall N. Bills has served as the BattleTech line developer, continuity editor, art director, and a primary author/novelist for almost a decade, where he’s led the publication of over seventy-five products for that universe.
He also served as the MechWarrior: Dark Age continuity editor, working for WizKids to help in the creation of that original universe, including its thirty full-length novels. In addition he’s published fiction and game design in the Eclipse Phase, Shadowrun, Earthdawn, Crimson Skies and Vor: The Maelstrom universes.
As one of the primary founders of InMediaRes Productions, LLC, which launched the successful Internet publishing venture BattleCorps.com, Randall is a key component in the development of Catalyst Game Labs to publish exciting, dynamic universes and games.
Randall is the primary developer for a new alternate history, steampunk miniatures game, Leviathans. Check out his weekly blogs discussing the development of the game and its universe at www.monstersinthesky.com.
He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his beautiful wife Tara, and three busy children: Bryn Kevin, Ryana Nikol and Kenyon Aleksandr.
An interviewer once said of Dayle A. Dermatis, “She has so many pseudonyms, you’d think she was a spy!” A dabbler in several genres (and with several coauthors), she’s published novels with Virgin Books and about 90 short stories to date. She lives in southern California within scent of the ocean, and she and her husband spend their spare time following Styx around the country (and sometimes out of it), exploring the world on a motorcycle, renovating their 1911 Craftsman home, doing historic re-creation, and lounging in their hot tub. She loves music, cats, Wales, TV, faeries, laughter, and defying expectations. You can read more about Dayle and her pseudonyms at www.cyvarwydd.com.
Loren L. Coleman has been a novelist, game designer, and all-around literary hatchet man for over fourteen years. Regularly published since 1995, his first BattleTech novel, Double-Blind, hit the bookstores in 1997. In the last ten years he’s published over twenty novels, including nine for BattleTech and a trilogy to help re-launch the world of Conan. Counting up all short stories and game-related sourcebooks, he has well over two million words in print—most of them involving a media tie-in project of one type or another. Most recently Loren has edited two DAW anthologies as well as a six-series set of Young Adult work for Adventure Boys, Inc.
Loren is also one of the primary founders of InMediaRes Productions, LLC, which launched the successful Internet publishing venture BattleCorps.com, and is now developing Catalyst Game Labs to publish product based on the Shadowrun and BattleTech intellectual properties.
When he isn’t writing or launching new ventures, Loren plays Xbox games, collects far too many DVDs, and holds a black belt in traditional Tae Kwon Do. Currently he resides in Washington State with his wife Heather Joy, two sons Talon LaRon and Conner Rhys Monroe, and daughter Alexia Joy.
After spending 25 years building computers, Dan C. Duval is mostly retired on the Oregon coast. A gamer for more than 35 years, he still can’t seem to find enough time to lay out a wargame or enough time with his horses. The cats, on the other hand, are more insistent and they know where he sleeps.
Jason M. Hardy is a beloved storyteller, international peacemaker, and revered philosopher who always enjoys the opportunity to write his own bio. He is the author of the MechWarrior: Dark Age novels The Scorpion Jar, Principles of Desolation (with Randall N. Bills) and The Last Charge, along with the Shadowrun novel Drops of Corruption. He’s contributed a number of stories to the BattleCorps website and, with the editor’s indulgence, will continue to do so. He lives in Chicago with his wife and son.
Jeff Kautz was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. He began designing rules for miniatures games while in grade school, discovered BattleTech in 1984 and was instantly hooked for life. He spent 6 years in the Army as an infantryman which provided much of the inspiration to write his first full-length story, Dog Soldiers, which was later published by BattleCorps.
Jeff’s hobbies include miniatures games (BattleTech and Flames of War), playing bass guitar, and cheering on the Washington Capitals. Rock the Red!
He still resides in Baltimore with my wife, Katherine, daughter, Morgan and two dogs, Roxy and Taco.
Kevin Killiany has been the husband of Valerie for over a quarter of a century and for various shorter periods of time the father of Alethea, Anson, and Daya. Since the late nineteen-sixties, Kevin has been an actor, a drill rig operator, a photographer, a warehouse grunt, a community college instructor, a drywall hanger, a teacher of exceptional children, a community services case manager, a high-risk intervention counselor, and a paper boy. He is currently a writer, with stories published in a variety of universes—including Star Trek, Doctor Who, MechWarrior, and of course BattleTech. He is also an associate pastor of the Soul Saving Station in Wilmington, NC.
After experimenting with numerous occupations, Louisa M. Swann, a native Californian (ack! She admits it!) settled on writing as her long-term mental aberration. During her excessively loud oral dissertations (proven integral to her writing process, as evidenced by numerous short story sales to DAW, Pocketbook, and BattleCorps), husband and son shake their heads and mutter something about “the muse.” In the interests of survival, husband Jim acquired an 80-acre compound complete with coyotes, frogs, and screech owls to serve as nightly backup band for a raving writer’s rants. Interdimensional traveling provides fodder for the muse, allowing Louisa to discover wonderful new places like the BattleTech world and put them on her list of favorite places.
Victor Milán was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but has lived most of his life in New Mexico. Since he was twenty he’s made his living almost exclusively by writing. He’s also been a cowboy, semi-pro actor, artist, bouncer, computer tech, and Albuquerque’s most popular all-night progressive rock DJ.
A charter member of the Wild Cards mafia, Victor contributed stories to Busted Flush and the recently-released Suicide Kings. He’s written a number of other short stories as well.
Among the over 90 books to his credit are Science Fiction and Fantasy, including the award-winning The Cybernetic Samurai; historical novels, westerns, STAR TREK, D&D, BattleTech, and MechWarrior: Dark Age novels, plus a boatload of pseudonymous action/adventure series books. His latest is Paradox from the ROGUE ANGEL series.
He enjoys taijiquan, birding, dogs, cats, ferrets, guns, xeriscaping, square foot gardening, and walking or riding his recumbent tadpole tricycle through Albuquerque’s scenic North Valley. And, of course, he’s spent many hours indulging his lifelong passion for reading.
Please fall by his website, www.VictorMilan.com, check out his Sense of Adventure blog at www.VictorMilan.com/blog/, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/victormilan.
Steven Mohan, Jr. lives in Pueblo, Colorado with his wife and three children and—shockingly—no cats. When he is not writing he works as a manufacturing engineer.
He has sold more than twenty stories to BattleCorps, including the Jihad serial Isle of the Blessed. He appeared twice in Total Warfare, and has done work for several upcoming BattleTech sourcebooks.
His original fiction has appeared in Interzone, On Spec, Polyphony, Paradox, and several DAW original anthologies, among other places. His stories have won honorable mention in The Year’s Best Science Fiction and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and he was nominated for the Pushcart Prize for his alternate history tale, A Monument More Lasting Than Brass.
Blaine Lee Pardoe is an author of science fiction and military history books. He has written numerous BattleTech/MechWarrior books and books on Count Felix von Luckner (The Cruise of the Sea Eagle) and Frank Luke Jr. (Terror of the Autumn Skies.)
Jason Schmetzer has been writing and editing fiction professionally for more than ten years, in both print and electronic markets. When not making things up, he is also an instructor in the English Department of a small college and holds an MFA in fiction writing (he didn’t make that part up). He lives in Indiana with his daughter and the menagerie of voices in his head.
Phaedra M. Weldon is the author of several BattleTech stories/novellas (available via www.battlecorps.com), including the continuing Sandoval Saga, En Passant and Epaulet Mate and the Isis Marik series, The Art of War.
Her other publications can be found in various DAW anthologies, as well as works in the Star Trek universe for Starfleet Corps of Engineers, and The Next Generation series, Slings and Arrows. She is also the author of the Zoë Martinique series from ACE Fantasy.