Allen Mulherin Steele, Jr. (born January 19, 1958) is an American science fiction author.

Steele began publishing short stories in 1988. His early novels formed a future history

Future history

A future history is a postulated history of the future and is used by authors in the subgenre of speculative fiction to construct a common background for fiction...

 beginning with Orbital Decay and continuing through Labyrinth of Night. Some of his early novels such as Orbital Decay and Lunar Descent were about blue-collar worker

Blue-collar worker

A blue-collar worker is a member of the working class who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled, manufacturing, mining, construction, mechanical, maintenance, technical installation and many other types of physical work...

s working on future construction projects in space. Since 1992, he has tended to focus on stand-alone projects and short stories, although he has written four novels about the moon Coyote.

Steele was born in Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

. He received a Bachelor's from New England College

New England College

New England College is a private four-year college in Henniker, New Hampshire, enrolling a total of approximately 1800 undergraduate and graduate students.-History:The school was created in 1946 for students attending college on the G.I...

 and a Master's from the University of Missouri

University of Missouri

The University of Missouri System is a state university system providing centralized administration for four universities, a health care system, an extension program, five research and technology parks, and a publishing press. More than 64,000 students are currently enrolled at its four campuses...

. Before he established himself as a science fiction author, he spent several years working as a journalist.

In 1996, his story "The Death of Captain Future

Captain Future

Captain Future is a science fictional hero pulp character originally published in self-titled American pulp magazines during the 1940s and early 50s.-Origins:...

" received the Hugo Award for Best Novella

Hugo Award for Best Novella

The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...

. He won the award again in 1998 for the story "...Where Angels Fear to Tread," and won the Hugo for best novella in 2011 for "The Emperor of Mars."

Steele serves on the Board of Advisors for both the Space Frontier Foundation

Space Frontier Foundation

The Space Frontier Foundation is a space advocacy nonprofit corporation organized to promote the interests of increased involvement of the private sector, in collaboration with government, in the exploration and development of space...

 and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, or SFWA is a nonprofit association of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. It was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight under the name Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. and it retains the acronym SFWA after a very brief use of the SFFWA...

, and he is a former member (Eastern Regional Director) of the SFWA Board of Directors. In April, 2001, he testified before the Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics of the U.S. House of Representatives, in hearings regarding space exploration in the 21st century.

In 2004, he contributed a chapter to the collaborative hoax novel, Atlanta Nights

Atlanta Nights

Atlanta Nights is a collaborative novel created in 2004 by a group of science fiction and fantasy authors, with the express purpose of producing a bad piece of work of unpublishable quality to test whether publishing firm PublishAmerica would still accept it...

.

Fiction

Coyote series

• Coyote: A Novel of Interstellar Exploration
  Coyote (novel)
  Coyote is science fiction author Allen Steele’s novel of interstellar exploration and settlement. The book is a compilation of some of Steele’s short stories into one epic novel...
  
  (2002)
• Coyote Rising: A Novel of Interstellar Revolution (2004)
• Coyote Frontier: A Novel of Interstellar Colonization (2005)
• Spindrift
  Spindrift (novel)
  Spindrift, is a fast paced science fiction novel by Hugo Award winning author Allen Steele. He deftly addresses Fermi's paradox of why humans haven't found evidence of alien civilization by joining this to the question of rapid interstellar travel and by starting the action in 2288...
  
  (2007)
• The River Horses (2007), novella
• Galaxy Blues (2008)
• Coyote Horizon (2009)
• Coyote Destiny (2010)
• Hex (2011)

Near Space series

also called Rude Astronauts series

• Orbital Decay (1989)
• Clarke County, Space (1990)
• Lunar Descent (1991)
• Labyrinth of Night (1992)
• A King of Infinite Space (1997)

Novels

• The Jericho Iteration (1994)
• The Weight (1995)
• The Tranquillity Alternative (1995)
• Oceanspace (2000)
• Chronospace (2001)

Novellas

• The Death of Captain Future (1996)

Collections

• Rude Astronauts (1987)
• All-American Alien Boy (1996)
• Sex and Violence in Zero-G: The Complete "Near Space" Stories (1998)
• American Beauty (2003)
• The Last Science Fiction Writer (2008)

External links

• Author's Website
• Official Coyote Series Website
• Review of The Last Science Fiction Writer on SF Site by Steven H Silver
  Steven H Silver
  Steven H Silver is an American science fiction fan and bibliographer, publisher, and editor. He has been nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer ten times and Best Fanzine three times without winning....