C. Stuart Hardwick is an L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest winner, a Colonnade Writing Contest winner, a Jim Baen Memorial Award finalist, and a James White Award semi-finalist.He grew up on a cold-war airbase in South Dakota, a crossroads between the Wild West and the Space Age with a little Jurassic Park thrown in for spice. A science fair robot led to software development, editing at Softdisk Publishing, and writing for an online technical journal. That fanned a new love for word craft and the old one--storytelling.Along the way, Stuart married an aquanaut, got hugged by a manatee, and studied at UC Berkeley. He lives in Houston with his family and his urban sled-dog, and has been known to wear a cape.