W. R. Thompson

W. R. Thompson is an American science-fiction author born in 1955 who began publishing short fiction in Analog magazine in 1983, with 'Perceptions.' Working mostly in hard science fiction, he built a body of short stories across three decades alongside a handful of novels. His stand-alone novel Sideshow imagines a near-future America fractured by religious sects united mainly in persecuting a 'Pariah Elite' of telepaths trying to save the world. He also wrote for the Star Trek: The Next Generation tie-in line, contributing the novels Debtor's Planet and Infiltrator, and for the military-science-fiction Imperial Stars series. Thompson's output has stayed comparatively compact next to his genre peers, weighted toward short fiction rather than a long novel backlist.