James H. Schmitz

James H. Schmitz (1911-1981) was a German-born American science fiction writer known for prolific, character-driven space opera published mainly in Astounding and Galaxy Science Fiction across three decades. He served as an aerial photographer with the U.S. Army Air Forces during the Second World War before establishing his writing career. Schmitz is remembered for creating strong, independent female protagonists, notably the psi-talented agents Telzey Amberdon and Trigger Argee, well ahead of similar trends elsewhere in the genre, and for a body of linked stories known collectively as the Hub series. His best-known novel, The Witches of Karres, follows young women with genuine witch-like psychic powers escaping enslavement, and was nominated for a Hugo Award. His 1950 story "The Second Night of Summer" is credited with an early use of the term "hive mind." Baen Books has kept much of his work in print with editorial notes by Eric Flint.