John M. Ford

John M. Ford (1957-2006) was an American novelist, poet, and game designer known for restless genre-hopping and dense, allusive prose. His best-known novel, The Dragon Waiting (1983), an alternate-history fantasy weaving vampires, the Medici, and the Wars of the Roses, won the World Fantasy Award. Within the Star Trek tie-in line he wrote two acclaimed and unconventional novels: The Final Reflection (1984), which reframes Klingon culture and history, and the comic How Much for Just the Planet? (1987), staged partly as a musical. Ford also designed award-winning tabletop role-playing game supplements and wrote poetry, winning multiple Rhysling Awards. He worked at various points as a hospital orderly, computer consultant, and copy editor while managing lifelong diabetes, and underwent a kidney transplant in 2000. After his death his books fell out of print for over a decade before being reissued by Tor beginning in 2020.