Allen Steele

Allen Steele is an American science-fiction writer born in 1958 in Nashville, Tennessee, and a former journalist. His debut novel, Orbital Decay (1989), launched his reputation for technically grounded, near-future space fiction, later expanded in the Near Space story sequence. He is best known for the Coyote series, five novels following the settlement of an extrasolar world under an oppressive Earth government. Steele has won multiple Hugo Awards, including for the novella "The Death of Captain Future," as well as Locus Awards, Japan's Seiun Award, and a Robert A. Heinlein Award. He has served on advisory boards for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and the Space Frontier Foundation, and testified before the U.S. Congress on space exploration policy in 2001.