Philip K. Dick (1928-1982) es autor de 36 novelas de ciencia ficción y 121 relatos breves en los que exploró la esencia de lo que hace al hombre humano, así como los peligros del poder centralizado. Hacia el final de su vida enfocó su trabajo hacia cuestiones metafísicas profundamente personales relacionadas con la naturaleza de Dios. Muchas de sus novelas y cuentos cortos han sido llevados al cine y la televisión, entre los que destacan Blade Runner (basada en ¿Sueñan los androides con ovejas eléctricas?), Desafío total, Minority Report y El hombre en el castillo. A lo largo de su carrera, que abarcó tres décadas, recibió el reconocimiento de la crítica y numerosos premios. En 2005 fue incluido en el Salón de la Fama de la Ciencia Ficción.

Harry Harrison, 1925 in Stamford, Connecticut geboren, ist einer der großen Meister der Science Fiction. Mit zahllosen Romanen und Erzählungen hat er sich weltweit ein Millionenpublikum erobert, darunter „New York 1999“, der als „Soylent Green“ verfilmt wurde und heute als einer der bedeutendsten Klassiker des Genres gilt. Harry Harrison starb am 15. August 2012 im Alter von 87 Jahren.

Lester del Rey (1915-1993) was born Leonard Knapp (but this became known only long after his death). After a spotty, abbreviated education and itinerant existence, he headed to New York where he became almost immediately a significant constituent of Astounding and John Campbell's celebrated Golden Age.Del Rey sold his first story to John Campbell in the first months of Campbell's editorship, and over the next several years he sold him many more, including his female-android story Helen O'Loy (1938), perhaps the first true science fiction romance, and Nerves (1942, novelized in 1956), a brilliant novella of atomic pile disruption, amazingly prescient of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Del Rey's apostolic and profoundly controversial short novel For I Am A Jealous People (1956), positing a malevolent Deity, is also very well known.Del Rey worked in the Scott Meredith Fee Department in the late 40s, edited science fiction magazines in the early 50s, published some noted juveniles (The Runaway Robot) in the mid-50s, and eventually became the founding editor of Del Rey Books, a fantasy and science fiction imprint under the aegis of Ballantine.In collaboration with his third wife, Judy-Lynn, del Rey's imprint became the most successful fantasy and science fiction publisher in history. The two of them nurtured fantasy writers like Stephen Donaldson, Anne McCaffrey, and Terry Brooks to bestselling status. In 1991, del Rey was named a Grand Master of the Science Fiction Writers of America. He died only a few months after his retirement from Ballantine.

Ben Bova, 1932 in Philadelphia geboren, ist einer der bekanntesten Science-Fiction-Autoren unserer Zeit. Nach dem Tod von John W. Campbell jr. wurde er 1972 Herausgeber des bekannten SF-Magazins Analog Science Fact & Fiction und gewann insgesamt sechs Hugo Awards als Bester Herausgeber. Daneben legte Bova auch zahlreiche Romane vor, insbesondere mit der sogenannten Sonnensystem-Reihe, zu der unter anderem „Mars“, „Venus“, „Jupiter“, „Saturn“ sowie „Asteroidenkrieg“, „Asteroidenfeuer“ und „Asteroidensturm“ gehören, ist er außerordentlich erfolgreich. Bova lebt mit seiner Familie in Florida.

Fritz Leiber is considered one of science fiction's legends. Author of a prodigious number of stories and novels, many of which were made into films, he is best known as creator of the classic Lankhmar fantasy series. Fritz Leiber has won awards too numerous to count including the coveted Hugo and Nebula, and was honored as a lifetime Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America. He died in 1992.

Marion Zimmer Bradley wurde 1933 geboren. Ihren Durchbruch als Autorin in Amerika feierte sie in den frühen 60er-Jahren mit den ersten Romanen über die ferne Welt Darkover. Der ganz große Welterfolg gelang ihr mit „Die Nebel von Avalon“, dem umfassenden Mythen-Roman, in dem sie Sagenüberlieferung mit eigener Fantasie verbindet. Ihre Avalon-Romane sind inzwischen längst zu Klassikern geworden. Marion Zimmer Bradley starb im September 1999 und zählt heute zu den erfolgreichsten Fantasy-Autoren der Welt.

For well over a half century, Andre Norton was one of the most popular science fiction and fantasy authors in the world. Since her first SF novels were published in the 1940s, her adventure SF has enthralled readers young and old. With series such as Time Traders, Solar Queen, Forerunner, Beast Master, Crosstime, and Janus, as well as many stand-alone novels, her tales of action and adventure throughout the galaxy have drawn countless readers to science fiction. Her fantasy, including the best-selling Witch World series, her "Magic" series, and many other unrelated novels, has been popular with readers for decades. Lauded as a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, she is the recipient of a Life Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Convention. Not only have her books been enormously popular; she also has inspired several generations of SF and fantasy writers, especially many talented women writers who have followed in her footsteps. In the past two decades she worked with other writers on a number of novels. Most notable among these were collaborations with Mercedes Lackey, the Halfblood Chronicles, as well as collaborations with A.C. Crispin (in the Witch World series) and Sherwood Smith (in the Time Traders and Solar Queen series). Andre Norton passed away in 2005.