Stephen Robinett

Stephen Robinett (July 13, 1941 – February 16, 2004) was an American science fiction writer and lawyer from Long Beach, California. He began publishing in Analog Science Fiction and Fact in 1969 with the story "Minitalent," initially writing under the pseudonym Tak Hallus — from the Persian word for pen name — before switching to his own name by the mid-1970s. His novel Stargate (1976) combined hard science fiction with a detective-story structure and helped popularize the stargate concept in the genre; The Man Responsible (1978) explored crime and artificial intelligence in a near-future setting. His short fiction, collected in Projections (1979), was known for its satirical wit. Robinett stopped publishing around 1990 after being diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease.