The Rule of Five: Year One

Melissa Scott (born 1960) is an American science fiction and fantasy author noted for her science fiction novels featuring LGBT characters and elaborate settings.

Don Sakers was launched the same month as Sputnik One, so it was perhaps inevitable that he should become a science fiction writer. A Navy brat by birth, he spent his childhood in such far-off lands as Japan, Scotland, Hawaii, and California. In California, rather like a latter-day Mowgli, he was raised by dogs.

As a writer and editor, he has explored the thoughts of sapient trees (The Leaves of October), brought ghosts to life (Carmen Miranda's Ghost is Haunting Space Station Three, Baen 1989), and beaten the "Cold Equations" scenario ("The Cold Solution," Analog 7/91, voted best short story of the year.)

Sakers is a member of the CoastLine SF Writers Group. He has taught sf-writing through Howard Community College.

In 2009, Don took up the position of book reviewer for Analog Science Ficiton & Fact, where he writes the "Reference Library" column in every issue.

In his day job, Don works for the Public Library.

Don lives at Meerkat Meade in suburban Baltimore with his spouse, costumer Thomas Atkinson.