- Stephen Euin Cobb
Stephen Euin Cobb (born
February 3 ,1955 ) is a U.S.science fiction author , futurist and the host of the award-winning podcast "The Future and You ". [Cite web |title=The Future And You |url=http://www.thefutureandyou.com/] He's also acolumnist [cite web |title=List of Stephen's articles written for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine |url=http://www.baens-universe.com/authors/Stephen_Euin_Cobb/] andcontributing editor [cite web |title=List of staff at Jim Baen's Universe Magazine |url=http://www.baens-universe.com/authors/Jim_Baen's_Universe!_staff] for "Jim Baen's Universe Magazine", the online magazine fromBaen Books . Cobb is also a game designer, artist, essayist,transhumanist , and is on the Advisory Board ofThe Lifeboat Foundation . [cite web |title=Lifeboat Foundation list of advisory boardmembers |url=http://lifeboat.com/ex/boards]Non-fiction
As the host of "
The Future and You ", a weekly one-hour long talk-show stylepodcast , he interviews authors, celebrities, scientists and "pioneers of the future" as to what they believe both the near future and distant future will be like.His articles and essays generally deal with the future or with science. Both are incorporated in his essay entitled [http://preview.baens-universe.com/articles/unidiag "The Universal Diagram"] (published in the February 2007 episode of "Jim Baen's Universe Magazine"). In it he proposed a method of charting, in three dimensions, all the celestial objects in the universe to make their relationships more obvious. (This can be considered vaguely analogous to the two dimensional
Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of stars.)Fiction
"Bones Burnt Black" (2004) is his most widely read
novel . It was serialized as an audio book in his podcast during the show's first two years (from December 2005 to November 2007). It is an action/adventure, murder/mystery involving a series of murders aboard a large passengerspacecraft which has been catastrophically sabotaged by the killer."Plague at Redhook" (1999), was his first published novel. It's story involved a
nanotechnology so highly advanced that it resembled magic and resulted in humanimmortality .He also contributed a short story called "The Errand Boy" to the anthology "Writers for Relief." (All the profits of this anthology are being donated to the victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.)
As a novelist, he specializes in
hard science fiction (fiction with a high degree of scientific accuracy). All of his novels occur within the samefictional universe which has been nicknamed "Naked Space " in honor of a fictional cosmological theory put forth by a character in one of his novels. (His short story "The Errand Boy" is a timetravel story, and so does not seem to fit within his Naked Space universe.)Boc Cryotank
Boc Cryotank is the main avatar (online personality) of
Stephen Euin Cobb in the online worldSecond Life .Within that virtual world he helps organize and promote events dealing with science fact, science fiction and the future. Examples include his arranging
David Brin 's personal appearance for theYuri's Night 2008 celebrations within Second Life which took place on April 12, 2008; and his arranging the personal appearance made byRobert J. Sawyer for an open forum lecture in the Grand Hall of the Central Nexus Building, followed immediately by a smaller discussion with the Extropia Book Club concerning Robert J. Sawyer's latest novel "Rollback" which was held on April 6, 2008.He is also a noted photographer and maintains office space on the eighth floor of the Central Nexus Building in Extropia Core.
Miscellaneous
He has invented a number of
game s, the most famous beingDeath Stacks , for which there is an annualtournament inCharlotte ,North Carolina . He is also the inventor of theIgnorance Index , an empirical rating system for talk shows on radio and television.His hobbies include:
astronomy (he has a 10.1 inchDobsonian styleNewtonian telescope ),handwriting analysis , and drawing inpencil ,charcoal andpastel s. He also collectsfossils , artwork and autographed books.He is a founding member of the
Order of Cosmic Engineers .Cobb is a member of the Beaver Creek Tribe of Native Americans in
South Carolina . His mother, Jewel Caroline Cobb (maiden name: Hoover), served one term as a member of the Tribal Counsel. (His mother's sister Emaline Barr has also served one term.) For the tribe to achieve state recognition, complete genealogical records of several tribal members had to be produced and certified as accurate; his mother was one of this core group. Records authenticate that her ancestry is no less than 1/4 Native American (uncertified records indicate that she is probably 1/2 Native American). Because of this, Stephen Euin Cobb is somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 Native American.Stephen Euin Cobb was born in
Orangeburg, South Carolina ; spent his childhood inForest Park ,Illinois (a suburb ofChicago ); and now lives inSouth Carolina .References
External links
* [http://lifeboat.com/ex/bios.stephen.euin.cobb/ Bio at Lifeboat Foundation]
* [http://www.baens-universe.com/authors/Stephen_Euin_Cobb/ Bio at Jim Baen's Universe Magazine]
* [http://www.stevecobb.com/ Stephen Euin Cobb official website] Includes photos, a biography and opening chapters for two of his novels. (Warning: Dial-up users may find it slow to load because it has many photos of the SF&F conventions he has attended.)
* [http://www.flickr.com/photos/25673184@N04/ Boc Cryotank's photos on Flickr]
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