John Christian Roberson (born August 25, 1970), known professionally as Chris Roberson, is an American science fiction author and publisher who is best known for alternate history novels and short stories.
Early life Roberson grew up near Dallas, Texas, and attended the University of Texas at Austin. After graduating with a degree in English literature and a minor in history, he leaned towards becoming a literary, post-modernist writer and penned a couple of novels in that style, which went unpublished as Roberson realized that he "wasn't depressed enough for that line of work". In the 1990s, Roberson wrote a couple of mystery novels but the end results turned out to be a mix of mystery and science fiction genres, so the publishers specializing in either of those rejected them. Ultimately, Roberson settled on writing science fiction, citing his upbringing in the 1970s and 1980s as the major inspiration, since the genre was particularly commonplace in America at that time:
"Everything from Saturday-morning cartoons to comic books to late-night B-movies to pulp novel reprints to blockbuster summer movies--it was all science fiction, in one form or another."Tobias S. Buckell interview with Chris Roberson for The Eternal Night . Accessed on the 21st of January, 2008
During this period, Roberson had a variety of day jobs, such as a product support engineer for Dell computers, a position he held for seven years and quit in 2003 to concentrate on his work as a writer and publisher.
Career Between 1998 and 2002, Roberson was part of the writer's collective Clockwork Storybook, alongside comic book creators Bill Willingham (of Elementals and, later, Fables fame), Lilah Sturges (who would go on to co-write Jack of Fables with Willingham and relaunch House of Mystery for Vertigo) and Mark Finn (also a Robert E. Howard scholar and playwright). Starting as a writing group, Clockwork Storybook developed into a monthly online anthology, then a publishing imprint of the same name. The collective attempted to capitalize on the growing trend of print on demand and launched with four print titles in early 2001. Roberson produced four novels for Clockwork Storybook, three of which were subsequently expanded and reprinted: Voices of Thunder (Feb. 2001) was revised to become Book of Secrets (Angry Robot, 2009), Set the Seas on Fire (Dec. 2001) was expanded for its 2007 release by Solaris, while Any Time at All (Sep. 2002) became Here, There and Everywhere (Pyr, 2005).
After the dissolution of Clockwork Storybook, Roberson decided to focus on his career as a writer and soon after made his first professional sale with the short story for the Live without a Net anthology, edited by Lou Anders and published by Roc. The book was published in 2003 and paved the way for future sales to Asimov's Science Fiction and other anthologies such as Tales of the Shadowmen, Postscripts, Black October Magazine, Fantastic Metropolis, RevolutionSF, Twilight Tales, Opi8, Alien Skin, Electric Velocipede, Subterranean Magazine and Lone Star Stories. The following year, Anders, whom Roberson considered "something of a personal patron", was hired as an editorial director at Prometheus Books' new science fiction imprint Pyr and bought Roberson's Here, There and Everywhere, the first novel in his Bonaventure-Carmody series.
In 2003, Roberson also started up his own small-press publishing house MonkeyBrain, having "discovered <...> in the few years of helping run the CWSB imprint, that [he] really enjoyed being a publisher." Roberson, who runs MonkeyBrain along with his business partner and spouse Allison Baker, decided early on that the company would deal exclusively in "traditional offset trade-paperbacks and hardcovers," distributed internationally, rather than printed on demand. In November, 2005, Roberson edited the first volume in a projected annual series of Adventure anthologies, comprising "original fiction in the spirit of early twentieth-century pulp fiction magazines" across the genres, featuring contributions from Lou Anders, Mark Finn, Paul Di Filippo, Michael Moorcock and Kim Newman.
At the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con, it was announced that Roberson was set to write a comic book mini-series set in the universe of the Vertigo series Fables, which was created by fellow former Clockwork Storybook author Bill Willingham. The mini-series, titled Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love and illustrated by Shawn McManus, was described by Roberson as featuring "spies, sex, and shoes." In late 2010, Roberson was selected by DC Comics to complete the "Grounded" story arc in the Superman ongoing series, which he worked on alongside his creator-owned Vertigo series iZombie and the Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love sequel mini-series, subtitled Fables are Forever. In 2012, Roberson announced he would no longer write for DC Comics due to their unethical treatment of creators. That same year, MonkeyBrain launched a new publishing arm for creator-owned comics that would focus solely on digital distribution through Comixology.
Personal life Roberson lives in Portland, Oregon, with his son.
Awards and nominations Roberson is a four-time nominee for the World Fantasy Award: as a writer in 2004, an editor and a publisher in 2006 and again a publisher in 2008. He was also nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer on two occasions. In 2009, Roberson won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in the "Long Form" category for The Dragon's Nine Sons. He has also been nominated twice in the "Short Form" category, winning in 2004 with his story "O One". Roberson's novel Paragaea was included in Waterstone's "Top Ten Science Fiction" list in 2006.Lou Anders' Amazon Blog. Accessed January 21, 2008
Bibliography Clockwork Storybook Novels published during Roberson's time as part of Clockwork Storybook: Voices of Thunder (sc, 322 pages, 2001, ) Cybermancy, Incorporated (sc, 356 pages, 2001, ) Set the Seas on Fire (sc, 272 pages, 2001, ) Any Time at All (sc, 212 pages, 2002, )
Bonaventure-Carmody Tales of the Bonaventure-Carmody clan, which Roberson first started developing for his Clockwork Storybook novels, continued with a number of short stories: Year Title Source Publisher Notes 2002 "Nowhere Man" opi8.com OPi8 Published with an illustration by Lee Kohse 2006 "The Jewel of Leystall" Cross Plains Universe MonkeyBrain 2008 "Death on the Crosstime Express" Sideways in Crime Solaris 2008 "Ill Met in Elvera" pyrsamples.blogspot.com Pyr 2009 "The Funeral Affair" Originally written as part of Roberson's debut novel Voices of Thunder First published online as a "polished" version via Roberson's blog 2009 "Edison's Frankenstein" Postscripts #20/21 PS Publishing 2010 "A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows" Masked Gallery Books 2013 "Mariner" Old Mars Bantam
The series was subsequently expanded with several revised editions of his Clockwork Storybook novels as well as two newly written entries: Here, There and Everywhere (hc, 282 pages, Pyr, 2005, ; sc, 2005, ) Revised and expanded reprint of Any Time at All (2002) Paragaea: A Planetary Romance (hc, 400 pages, Pyr, 2006, ; sc, 2006, ) Set the Seas on Fire (sc, 380 pages, Solaris, 2007, ) Revised and expanded reprint of Set the Seas on Fire (2001) End of the Century (sc, 485 pages, Pyr, 2009, ) Book of Secrets (sc, 384 pages, Angry Robot, 2009, ) Revised and expanded reprint of Voices of Thunder (2001)
Celestial Empire Roberson's alternate history series Celestial Empire began with a number of short stories, which can be sorted in internal chronological order or the publication order: Year Title # Source Publisher Notes 2003 "O One" 4 Live without a Net Roc 2004 "Red Hands, Black Hands" 9 Asimov's Science Fiction vol. 28 #12 Penny Publications 2005 "Gold Mountain" 6 Postscripts #5 PS Publishing 2007 "The Sky is Large and the Earth is Small" 3 Asimov's Science Fiction vol. 31 #7 Dell Magazines 2007 "Fire in the Lake" 1 Subterranean Online (Fall 2007) Subterranean Press 2007 "History Repurposed: The Celestial Empire Stories" Vector #254 British Science Fiction Association Essay 2007 "Metal Dragon Year" 5 Interzone #213 2008 "The Line of Dichotomy" 8 The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction Volume 2 Solaris 2008 "Thy Saffron Wings" 2 Postscripts #15 PS Publishing 2008 "Mirror of Fiery Brightness" 7 Subterranean Online (Fall 2008) Subterranean Press 2009 "Dragon King of the Eastern Sea" 11 We Think, Therefore We Are DAW Books 2009 "All Under Heaven" 10 Firebirds Soaring Firebird 2010 "Wonder House" 12 Asimov's Science Fiction vol. 34 #1 Dell Magazines
The series was further expanded with one novella and three full-length novels: The Voyage of Night Shining White (hc, 84 pages, PS Publishing, 2006, ; sc, 2006, ) The Dragon's Nine Sons (sc, 416 pages, Solaris, 2008, ) Iron Jaw and Hummingbird (hc, 368 pages, Viking, 2008, ) Three Unbroken (sc, 416 pages, Solaris, 2009, ) Serialized online via Solaris' website between 2007 and 2008.
Miscellaneous works Short stories Year Title Source Publisher Notes 2001 "Lord Peter Midnight and the Goblin King" fantasticmetropolis.com Gabe Chouinard Published with an illustration by Gerald Brom 2003 "Long Night, Holy Night" twilighttales.com Twilight Tales 2003 "Likeness of a Wolf" twilighttales.com Twilight Tales 2004 "Wishes" Lone Star Stories #1 Eric T. Marin 2004 "Granma Stemple" alienskinmag.com Froggy Bottom Press 2004 "So Far from Us in All Ways" The Many Faces of Van Helsing Ace Books 2004 "In the Frozen City" Electric Velocipede #7 Spilt Milk Press 2004 "In Sheep's Clothing" Black October Magazine #6 John DiDomenico 2005 "Penumbra" Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 1 Black Coat Press 2005 "The Trouble with Superman" Space Squid #1 Space Squid Press 2005 "Prowl Unceasing" Adventure MonkeyBrain Roberson also edited this anthology 2006 "Contagion" FutureShocks Roc 2006 "Annus Mirabilis" Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 2 Black Coat Press 2006 "Companion to Owls" Asimov's Science Fiction vol. 30 #3 Dell Magazines 2006 "Last" Subterranean Magazine #4 Subterranean Press 2006 "Strange Sounding Names" Continuum Science Fiction #6 HiTek Designs 2006 "Eventide" Forbidden Planets DAW Books 2007 "The Famous Ape" Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 3 Black Coat Press 2007 "The End of Now" Short Trips: Destination Prague Big Finish 2007 "Monster Radio" This is My Funniest 2 BenBella 2007 "And Such Small Deer" The Solaris Book of New Fantasy Solaris 2008 "Brave New World" Star Trek: Myriad Universes — Echoes and Refractions Pocket Books 2008 "Merridew of Abominable Memory" Gaslight Grimoire EDGE Publishing 2009 "The Improbable Legend of Quick Johnny" Electric Velocipede #17/18 Spilt Milk Press 2009 "Gauntlet Run" Heroes of the Space Marines Black Library 2009 "Sojourner" Under the Rose Norilana Co-written by Roberson and Lou Anders 2010 "His Majesty's Menagerie" Shimmer Magazine #11 2010 "The Final Flight of Greatheart Silver" The Worlds of Philip José Farmer: Protean Dimensions Meteor House 2011 "LARP on Mars" Life on Mars: Tales from the New Frontier Viking 2017 "The Other Side of Summer" Hellboy: An Assortment of Horrors Dark Horse 2019 "Last Shot" Scarlet Traces: A War of the Worlds Anthology Abaddon
Novels Year Title Series Publisher ISBN Notes 2005 Sharkboy and Lavagirl Adventures: The Day Dreamer Sharkboy and Lavagirl TroubleMaker Publishing (Hardcover, 162 pages) Co-written by Roberson and Robert Rodriguez 2005 Sharkboy and Lavagirl Adventures: Return to Planet Drool Sharkboy and Lavagirl TroubleMaker Publishing (Hardcover, 148 pages)