Charles Sheffield

For the owner of Buckingham Palace (then known as Buckingham House) who sold it to King George III, see Sir Charles Herbert Sheffield, 1st Baronet.

Charles Sheffield
Born(1935-06-25)25 June 1935
Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, England[1]
Died2 November 2002(2002-11-02) (aged 67)
Silver Spring, Maryland, U.S.[1]
OccupationWriter, scientist
NationalityBritish
Alma materSt John's College, Cambridge
Period1977–2002 (fiction)
1962–? (professional)[1]
GenreScience fiction
Notable awards
  • John W. Campbell Memorial Award
    1992 Brother to Dragons
  • Nebula Award
    1993 Georgia on My Mind
  • Hugo Award
    1994 Georgia on My Mind
Spouse
Children4

Charles Sheffield (25 June 1935 – 2 November 2002),[1] was an English-born mathematician, physicist and science-fiction writer who served as a President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and of the American Astronautical Society.[2]

His novel The Web Between the Worlds, featuring the construction of a space elevator, was published almost simultaneously with Arthur C. Clarke's novel on the subject, The Fountains of Paradise - a coincidence that amused them both.[3] Excerpts from both Sheffield's The Web Between the Worlds and Clarke's The Fountains of Paradise have appeared recently in a space-elevator anthology, Towering Yarns.[4]

Sheffield served as Chief Scientist of Earth Satellite Corporation, a company that processed remote-sensing satellite data.[5] The association gave rise to many technical papers and two popular non-fiction books, Earthwatch (1981) and Man on Earth (1983), both collections of false-colour and enhanced images of Earth from space.

He won the Nebula and Hugo awards for his 1993 novelette "Georgia on My Mind" [6][7]and the 1992 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel for his 1992 novel Brother to Dragons.[8]

Sheffield was Toastmaster at BucConeer, the 1998 World Science Fiction Convention in Baltimore.[9] He was also a former President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writes of America.[10]

Before he died, he was writing a column for the Baen Books web-site; his last column concerned the discovery of the brain tumor that led to his death.[11]

  1. ^ a b c d e Cite error: The named reference SFE was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ American Astronautical Society "History of AAS: 1974 to Present". Retrieved 4 June 2009. Archived 18 July 2010 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ Sheffield, Charles (2001). The web between the worlds. Copyright Paperback Collection (Library of Congress). Riverside, New York: Baen Publishing Enterprises. ISBN 978-0-671-31973-1. OCLC 45836846.
  4. ^ Clarke, Arthur; Sheffield, Charles; Crilley, Paul; Resnick, Mike (22 December 2017). Towering Yarns: Space Elevator Short Stories. Volume 1 of Towering Yarns. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 9781981495207. Retrieved 29 October 2022.
  5. ^ Pace, Eric (9 November 2002). "Charles Sheffield, 67, Physicist And Author of Science Fiction". Retrieved 15 November 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. ^ Fantasy Writers Association. "1993 Nebula Awards". The Nebula Awards®. Retrieved 16 November 2024.
  7. ^ "1994 Hugo Awards". The Hugo Award. 28 July 2007. Retrieved 16 November 2024.
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference CA was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ "56th World Science Fiction Convention - Bucconeer 1998". 209.68.15.119. Retrieved 16 November 2024.
  10. ^ "Present and Past SFWA Board & Officers". SFWA. Retrieved 16 November 2024.
  11. ^ Sheffield, Charles (12 August 2002). "Not My Favorite Column, Borderlands of Science". Archived from the original on 2 October 2002.