ALLEN M. STEELE
Allen Mulherrin Steele, Jr. became a full-time science fiction writer in 1988. His first major short story, “Live from the Mars Hotel” was published in Asimov’s Science Fiction in the mid-December 1988 issue, and his first novel, Orbital Decay, was published by Ace in November 1989. Since then, Steele has been a prolific author of novels, short stories, and essays, with his work translated into more than a dozen languages worldwide.
A former resident of Rindge, New Hampshire, and St. Louis, Missouri, since 1997 he has lived in Whately, Massachusetts, with his wife Linda and a succession of adopted dogs, the latest of whom is Sonic Milton.
Education and Early Career
Steele was born in Nashville, Tennessee on January 19, 1958. He is a member of the 1977 graduating class of the Webb School in Bell Buckle, Tennessee. He received his B.A. in Communications from New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire in 1982, and his M.A. in Journalism from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, in 1985.
Before turning to writing science fiction full-time, Steele worked for as a staff writer for daily and weekly newspapers in Tennessee, Missouri, and Massachusetts, freelanced for business and general-interest magazines in the Northeast, and spent a short tenure as a Washington correspondent, covering politics on Capitol Hill.
Associations and Achievements
Allen Steele joined the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1989. He was the Eastern Regional Director of its Board of Directors 1999 and also belonged to its Board of Advisors from 1999 until it was dissolved. He was also an advisor for the Space Frontier Foundation.
In April 2001, Steele testified by invitation before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, in hearings on the future of space exploration in the 21st century.
His short story “Live from the Mars Hotel” is among the stories and novels included on the “Visions of Mars” disk carried aboard NASA’s Phoenix lander, which landed on Mars in 2008.
Awards and Nominations
| 1990 | — | Orbital Decay; Winner, Locus Award, Best First Novel |
| — | John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer; First Runner-Up | |
| 1991 | — | Clarke County, Space; nominee, Phillip K. Dick Award, Best Novel |
| 1993 | — | Donald A. Wollheim Memorial Award |
| 1996 | — | “The Death of Captain Future” (Asimov’s, 10/95) winner, Hugo Award winner, Best Novella; Winner, Science Fiction Weekly Reader Appreciation Award |
| — | “The Good Rat” (Analog, mid-Dec./95); nominee, Hugo Award, Best Novelette | |
| 1997 | — | “The Death of Captain Future”; nominee, Nebula Award, Best Novella |
| 1998 | — | The Death of Captain Future”; Winner, Seiun Award (Japan), Best Foreign Short Story |
| — | “’…Where Angels Fear to Tread'” (Asimov’s, Oct./Nov. `97); Winner, Hugo Award, the Locus Award; Winner, Asimov’s Readers Award, Best Novella; Winner; the Science Fiction Chronicle Readers Award; nominees, Nebula Award, Theodore Sturgeon Award, and Seiun Award. | |
| 1999 | — | “Zwarte Piet’s Tale” (Analog, 12/98); Winner, AnLab Award, Best Novelette; Nominee, Hugo Award, Best Novelette |
| 2001 | — | “Agape Among the Robots” (Analog, 5/00), Nominee, Hugo Award, Best Novelette |
| 2002 | — | “Stealing Alabama” (Asimov’s 1/01); nominee, Hugo Award, Best Novella; Winner, Asimov’s Readers’ Award, Best Novella |
| — | “The Days Between” (Asimov’s 3/01); nominee, Hugo Award, Best Novelette; Phoenix Award, Southern Fan Confederation | |
| 2003 | — | “The Days Between”; nominee, Nebula Award, Best Novelette |
| 2005 | — | “Liberation Day”; Winner, Asimov’s Readers Award, Best Novella. |
| — | “The Garcia Narrows Bridge” Winner, Asimov’s Readers Award, Best Novelette. | |
| 2011 | — | “The Emperor of Mars” (Asimov’s, June 2010); Winner, Hugo Award for Best Novelette; Winner, Asimov’s Readers Award, Best Novelette |
| 2013 | — | Robert A. Heinlein Award |
| 2015 | — | “The Legion of Tomorrow”; Winner, Asimov’s Readers Award, Best Novella. |
| 2022 | — | Avengers of the Moon; nominee; Seiun Award, Best Foreign SF Novel. |
| 2023 | — | “Lemuria 7 is Missing”; Winner, Asimov’s Readers Award, Best Novelette |