Charles Sheffield - Definition and Overview

Charles Sheffield (June 25, 1935–November 2, 2002), was an English-born mathematician, physicist and science fiction author. He had been a President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and of the American Astronomical Society.

His novel The Web Between the Worlds, featuring the construction of a space elevator, was published almost simultaneously with Arthur C. Clarke's novel about that very same subject, The Fountains of Paradise, a coincidence that amused them both.

For some years he was the chief scientist of Earth Satellite Corporation, a company analysing satellite data. This resulted in many technical papers and two popular non-fiction books, Earthwatch and Man on Earth, both collections of false colour and enhanced images of Earth from space.

He won the Nebula and Hugo awards for his novelette "Georgia on My Mind" and the 1992 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for his novel Brother to Dragons.

He had been writing a column for the Baen Books web site; his last column concerned the discovery of the brain tumour that led to his death.

He was married to writer Nancy Kress.

Bibliography (incomplete)

Novels

• Sight of Proteus (1978)
• The Web Between The Worlds (1979)
• My Brother's Keeper (1982, revised 1998)
• Between the Strokes of Night (1985)
• The Nimrod Hunt (1986, revised as The Mind Pool, 1993)
• Trader's World (1988)
• Proteus Unbound (1989)
• Summertide (1990)
• Divergence (1991)
• Brother to Dragons (1992) (John W. Campbell Memorial Award)
• Cold as Ice (1992)
• Transcendence (1992)
• Godspeed (1993)
• The Ganymede Club (1995)
• Higher Education (1995)
• Proteus in the Underworld (1995)
• The Billion Dollar Boy (1997)
• Convergence (1997)
• Putting Up Roots (1997)
• Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1997)
• Aftermath (1998)
• The Cyborg from Earth (1998)
• Starfire (1999)
• The Spheres of Heaven (2001)
• Dark as Day (2002)
• Resurgence (2002)

Non-Fiction

• The Borderlands of Science (1999)

Short Stories

• "Humanity Test" (1989)
• "The Double-Spiral Staircase" (1990?)
• "A Braver Thing" (1990)
• "Georgia on My Mind" (1993) (Hugo, Nebula)