Charles Sheffield
Charles A. Sheffield (June 25, 1935 – November 2, 2002), was an English-born mathematician, physicist and science fiction author. He had been a President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and of the American Astronomical Society.
His novel The Web Between the Worlds, featuring the construction of a space elevator, was published almost simultaneously with Arthur C. Clarke's novel about that very same subject, The Fountains of Paradise, a coincidence that amused them both.
For some years he was the chief scientist of Earth Satellite Corporation, a company analysing remote sensing satellite data. This resulted in many technical papers and two popular non-fiction books, Earthwatch and Man on Earth, both collections of false colour and enhanced images of Earth from space.
He won the Nebula and Hugo awards for his novelette "Georgia on My Mind" and the 1992 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for his novel Brother to Dragons.
Sheffield was Toastmaster at BucConeer, the 1998 World Science Fiction Convention in Baltimore.
He had been writing a column for the Baen Books web site; his last column concerned the discovery of the brain tumour that led to his death.
He was married to writer Nancy Kress.
“Sometimes I think about dying. And then I wonder about going to hell. And then I think that if and when I go there, the place will be completely organized and run by lost souls, with a council and a works committee and an ethics panel, and I'll feel right at home.”
“I'm fat...I regard that as healthy. Good food wards off disease. - Dr. Erasmus Darwin”
“A joke was the best barometer for mental weather.”
“Remember, an easy question can have an easy answer. But a hard question must have a hard answer. And for the hardest questions of all, there may be no answer - except faith.”
“I'm getting old, thought Eileen Calder. Old and worn out and cynical. And being cynical is a lot worse than being old or worn out.”