Michael A. Banks
Encyclopedia
Michael A. Banks is a science fiction
writer and editor. He is perhaps best known for nonfiction works about the genre (including "Understanding Science Fiction," 1980) and collaborations with Mack Reynolds
. Banks has several other novels to his credit, (including The Odysseus Solution, with Dean R. Lambe), and has been a frequent contributor to Analog, Asimov's SF, and other publications.
A former columnist for Windows Magazine and Computer Shopper, Banks was early on the scene as an Internet journalist, documenting the growth of online services and, later, the Internet and Web from the early 1980s onward. His The Modem Reference (Brady/Simon & Schuster) was a standard guide to the online world throughout the 1980s, selling more than 200,000 copies.
Banks explored Internet crime and computer privacy with books such as Web Psychos, Stalkers and Pranksters (Coriolis) and PC Confidential (Sybex).
He also served as a freelance acquisitions editor for Baen Books, and associate editor for Baen's quarterly "book-a-zine," New Destinies, in the 1980s.
Banks has lately turned to the biography field, writing about noted aviators, inventors, and other figures for magazines. A recent book, CROSLEY: Two Brothers and a Business Empire that Transformed the Nation is the story of inventor Powel Crosley, Jr., whose low-cost radios touched off the broadacsting industry in 1921. (Crosley also founded WLW, the world's most powerful radio station, built the Crosley automobile and Moonbeam aircraft, and was involved in a number of other high-tech ventures during the first half of the 20th Century.)
Banks more recently wrote Blogging Heroes (Wiley, 2007), and On the Way to the Web: The Secret History of the Internet (APress, 2008). On the Way to the Web carries special appeal in that it tells the complete story of what was happening online before the Web--including the histories of Videotex and online services such as CompuServe
, The Source, PlayNET
, AOL
, Q-Link, Viewdata
, Prestel
,
His most recent book is Before Oprah: Ruth Lyons, the Woman Who Invented Talk TV (Orange Frazer Press
, 2009)
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writer and editor. He is perhaps best known for nonfiction works about the genre (including "Understanding Science Fiction," 1980) and collaborations with Mack Reynolds
Mack Reynolds
Dallas McCord "Mack" Reynolds was an American science fiction writer. His pen names included Clark Collins, Mark Mallory, Guy McCord, Dallas Ross and Maxine Reynolds. Many of his stories were published in Galaxy Magazine and Worlds of If Magazine...
. Banks has several other novels to his credit, (including The Odysseus Solution, with Dean R. Lambe), and has been a frequent contributor to Analog, Asimov's SF, and other publications.
A former columnist for Windows Magazine and Computer Shopper, Banks was early on the scene as an Internet journalist, documenting the growth of online services and, later, the Internet and Web from the early 1980s onward. His The Modem Reference (Brady/Simon & Schuster) was a standard guide to the online world throughout the 1980s, selling more than 200,000 copies.
Banks explored Internet crime and computer privacy with books such as Web Psychos, Stalkers and Pranksters (Coriolis) and PC Confidential (Sybex).
He also served as a freelance acquisitions editor for Baen Books, and associate editor for Baen's quarterly "book-a-zine," New Destinies, in the 1980s.
Banks has lately turned to the biography field, writing about noted aviators, inventors, and other figures for magazines. A recent book, CROSLEY: Two Brothers and a Business Empire that Transformed the Nation is the story of inventor Powel Crosley, Jr., whose low-cost radios touched off the broadacsting industry in 1921. (Crosley also founded WLW, the world's most powerful radio station, built the Crosley automobile and Moonbeam aircraft, and was involved in a number of other high-tech ventures during the first half of the 20th Century.)
Banks more recently wrote Blogging Heroes (Wiley, 2007), and On the Way to the Web: The Secret History of the Internet (APress, 2008). On the Way to the Web carries special appeal in that it tells the complete story of what was happening online before the Web--including the histories of Videotex and online services such as CompuServe
CompuServe
CompuServe was the first major commercial online service in the United States. It dominated the field during the 1980s and remained a major player through the mid-1990s, when it was sidelined by the rise of services such as AOL with monthly subscriptions rather than hourly rates...
, The Source, PlayNET
PlayNET
PlayNet was a U.S. online service for Commodore 64 personal computers that operated from 1984 to 1987. It was operated by the PlayNet, Inc of Troy, New York.-History:...
, AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
, Q-Link, Viewdata
Viewdata
Viewdata is a Videotex implementation. It is a type of information retrieval service in which a subscriber can access a remote database via a common carrier channel, request data and receive requested data on a video display over a separate channel. Samuel Fedida was credited as inventor of the...
, Prestel
Prestel
Prestel , the brand name for the UK Post Office's Viewdata technology, was an interactive videotex system developed during the late 1970s and commercially launched in 1979...
,
His most recent book is Before Oprah: Ruth Lyons, the Woman Who Invented Talk TV (Orange Frazer Press
Orange Frazer Press
is an independent publisher headquartered in Wilmington, Ohio. Founded in 1987, the press is named after Orange Frazer, an Ohio man who ran a grocery store in Wilmington with his brother John. Frazer also traveled the world, clerked for the Ohio Supreme Court, and collected enough books to create...
, 2009)