Paradigms Lost: Histria SciFi&Fantasy

Ryk E. Spoor was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and has lived in South Dakota, Georgia, New York, and Pennsylvania. Severe asthma kept him indoors for much of his childhood, which meant he spent most of it reading and, by the age of six, writing. He came to fantasy through L. Frank Baum's Oz books and to science fiction through Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, but it was a fifth-grade teacher who set the real course. She lent him a battered copy of E.E. "Doc" Smith's Second-Stage Lensmen, which sent him on a ten-year reading spree through every science-fiction book he could find and left him with one firm conviction: that being a science-fiction author was the greatest profession anyone could aspire to.

At the turn of the 21st century, Ryk achieved that ambition through the highly inadvisable strategy of insulting Eric Flint in public. Neither Eric nor Ryk recommend anyone else attempt this approach. Eric, to his credit, brought Ryk's work to the attention of Baen Books anyway, leading to the publication of Digital Knight and two collaborations with Flint, "Diamonds Are Forever" and Boundary. His next solo novel, Grand Central Arena, followed in April 2010, with the Boundary sequel Threshold arriving that same June.

Since then, Ryk has completed the Balanced Sword trilogy (Phoenix Rising, Phoenix in Shadow, and Phoenix Ascendant), released the self-published Oz-based fantasy Polychrome, and expanded into new territory with the magical-girl novel Princess Holy Aura, the space opera Demons of the Past: Revelation, and the first volume in the Fall of Veils series, French Roast Apocalypse.

Outside of fiction, Ryk serves as Research and Development Coordinator for International Electronic Machines, where he has secured funding for and directed research into wireless MEMS sensor systems, power harvesting, and smart video security systems, among other fields. He holds several patents in these areas. He lives in Troy, New York, with his wife Kathleen and their four children, Christopher, Gabriel, Victoria, and Domenica.