Greg Bear

(1951 --)

Gregory Dale Bear was born in San Diego, California and was educated at San Diego State College (A.B. in English, 1973). From 1969 to 1975 Bear worked at a variety of jobs, including lecturer, technical writer, planetarium operator, and bookstore clerk, before becoming a full-time freelance writer in 1975. He was a SF fan from an early age, and participated in most aspects of fandom. His second wife, Astrid, is the daughter of Poul and Karen Anderson.

He was GoH at Millennium Philcon, the 2001 Worldcon.

An artist as well as a writer, Bear illustrated some of his early magazine stories, even painting covers for some of them. He provided artwork for fanzines as well, including three pages of artwork for the Star Trek Concordance Color Book I (1973).

First publication: "Destroyers" in Famous Science Fiction (Winter, 1967/68); First novel: Hegira (Dell, 1979); First collection: The Wind From a Burning Woman (Arkham House, 1983).

Bear is considered by most critics to be one of the foremost writers of hard SF, and by some to be the most successful of all. Known for his originality, Bear writes about such modern sciences as genetic engineering and cybernetics; yet he has also published poetry, horror, and fantasy.

His other SF books include Psychlone (1979), Beyond Heaven's River (1980), Strength of Stones (1981), The Infinity Concerto (1984), Blood Music (1985), Eon (1985), The Serpent Mage (1986) [sequel to The Infinity Concerto), The Forge of God (1987), Eternity (1988) [a sequel to Eon], Heads (1990), Queen of Angels (1990), Songs of Earth and Power (1992) [an omnibus volume consisting of The Infinity Concerto and The Serpent Mage, both slightly revised and with a new Afterword], Anvil of Stars (1992) [sequel to The Forge of God], Foundation and Chaos (1998) [set in Asimov's Foundation Universe, after Foundation's Fear by Gregory Benford, Dinosaur Summer (1998) [a sequel to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World], Darwin's Radio (1999), and Darwin's Children (2003) [a sequel to Darwin's Radio]. His Star Wars novel, Rogue Planet, was published in 2000; and his novel Vitals, a thriller involving a breakthrough in the search for immortality, was issued in 2002. Deadlines, a science fiction-horror novel, was published in 2004; the novel Quantico, a contemporary thriller about three FBI agents and their involvement in a new round of terrorist attacks, appeared in 2005. A short story collection, Bear's Fantasies, appeared in 1992; earlier collections of his short fiction were Early Harvest (1988) and Tangents (1989). The Collected Stories of Greg Bear was issued in 2002. Dead Lines and Sleepside: The Collected Fantasies of Greg Bear both appeared in 2004. His "Queen of Angels" sequence consisted of Queen of Angels (1990), Heads (1990), Moving Mars (1993), and Slant (1997). City at the End of Time appeared in 2008.

He was the subject of the June 1983 "Biolog" department in ASF; several interviews with Bear have appeared in Locus. Bear on writing SF: "The writing is not easy. It's frequently hard and painful work. And I can think of no greater joy."

Entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

Awards, Honors and GoHships:

• 1983 -- Nebula Award for Best Novella
• 1984 -- 1984 Best Novelette Hugo for Blood Music
• 1986 -- ConClave XI, Nebula Award for Best Short Story
• 1987 -- 1987 Best Short Story Hugo for "Tangents"
• 1988 -- MisCon 3, Boskone 25, Dreamcon 3
• 1989 -- Pinekone 2 (Canvention 9)
• 1992 -- Philcon 1992
• 1993 -- Westercon 46
• 1994 -- AggieCon XXV, Nebula Award for Best Novel
• 1995 -- MileHiCon 27, Con-Version XII
• 1996 -- ICFA 17
• 1999 -- Endeavour Award, Jack Williamson Lectureship
• 2000 -- Endeavour Award
• 2001 -- Millennium Philcon, Nebula Award for Best Novel
• 2003 -- Foolscap V, Baycon 2003
• 2006 -- Robert A. Heinlein Award
• 2009 -- Boskone 46 (NESFA Press Guest), Neffy Award
• 2017 -- Forry Award

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Person

Website

1951—

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