Timothy Zahn began his new hobby of writing science fiction in 1975. Over the next three years he gradually gave more time to it until he sold his first story in December 1978 (“Ernie,” Analog, September 1979). In 1980 he left grad school and began writing full time.

Since then he has published sixty-five novels, over a hundred short stories and novelettes, and five collections of short fiction. Best known for his sixteen Star Wars novels, he is also the author of the Quadrail series, the Cobra series, the Conquerors trilogy, the Sibyl’s War trilogy, the young-adult Dragonback series, and the current Icarus Saga.