Given our current campaign for Fantastic Novels on Kickstarter, I thought now was a good opportunity to get to know the authors involved a little bit better.

The first up under the microscope is Keith R.A. DeCandido, the author I have known the longest in this campaign. In fact, I remember the exact moment I met Keith. It was on a panel at I-CON 22… or a number of them. We were among a mere handful of authors participating in the literary track, so we saw a lot of one another that weekend. I am best described here as an enthusiastic young pup with no clue as to etiquette or professionalism. (Why, yes… yes, I am sitting on the panel table instead of behind it! ::: groan :::) Keith was very gracious, as were the other panelists. No one said a thing, for which I am eternally grateful.

But we aren’t here to talk about me. Twenty years ago, Keith was already a well-established name in the realm of media-tie in franchises as both an author and an editor. Some of the franchises he has written for include Star Trek, Supernatural, Marvel, Buffy, Aliens, Stargate SG-1, X-Files, Doctor Who, and so very many more. The list has only grown since.

In 2013, Keith began working with us professionally, writing for the Defending the Future anthologies and exploring his own original fiction. The most popular is his Precinct series of fantasy police procedural novels, the first of which, Dragon Precinct originally published with Simon  & Schuster in 2004. In fact, the sixth novel in the series, Phoenix Precinct, is the one we are funding with this campaign.

In the years since, we have gone from being his editors to being his publishers (and, of course, also his friends). As you can see, we have a lot of faith in Keith and his writing. While he continues his work with the franchises, he has branched out considerably into original fiction. The following are his works published by eSpec, as well as our anthologies he has contributed to.

Those of you who support our endeavors will recognize many of these. We have faith the list will grow as we continue to explore exciting new concepts and the unexpected ways Keith finds to take them on.

Keith R.A. DeCandido is a white male in his late forties, approximately two hundred pounds. He was last seen in the wilds of the Bronx, New York City, though he is often sighted in other locales. Usually, he is armed with a laptop computer, which some have classified as a deadly weapon. Through use of this laptop, he has inflicted more than fifty novels, as well as an indeterminate number of comic books, nonfiction, novellas, and works of short fiction on an unsuspecting reading public. Many of these are set in the milieus of television shows, games, movies, and comic books, among them Star Trek, Alien, Cars, Resident Evil, Doctor Who, Supernatural, World of Warcraft, Marvel Comics, and many more.

We have received information confirming that more stories involving Danthres, Torin, and the city-state of Cliff’s End can be found in the novels Dragon Precinct, Unicorn Precinct, Goblin Precinct, Gryphon Precinct, Tales from Dragon Precinct, and the forthcoming Manticore Precinct and More Tales from Dragon Precinct. His other recent crimes against humanity include an urban fantasy series taking place in DeCandido’s native Bronx (A Furnace Sealed and the forthcoming Feat of Clay, with more threatened); the urban fantasy short story collection Ragnarok and a Hard Place: More Tales of Cassie Zukav, Weirdness Magnet; the Systema Paradoxa novella All-the-Way House; the graphic novel prequel to the Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness TV series, The Beginning; short stories in the anthologies Devilish and Divine, Three Time Travelers Walk Into…, The Fans are Buried Tales, and in the Phenomenons and Thrilling Adventure Yarns series; and nonfiction about pop culture for Tor.com, the Subterranean Blue Grotto, Outside In, and Gold Archive series, and on his own Patreon. Among his known associates are collaborators in his crimes against humanity: Dr. Munish K. Batra (the serial-killer thriller Animal), David Sherman (the military SF novel To Hell and Regroup), and Gregory A. Wilson (the award-winning graphic novel Icarus).

If you see DeCandido, do not approach him, but call for backup immediately. He is often seen in the company of a suspicious-looking woman who goes by the street name of “Wrenn,” as well as several as-yet-unidentified cats. A full dossier can be found at DeCandido.net