Jeff Carlson was born on the day of the first manned moon landing and narrowly escaped being named Apollo, Armstrong, or Rocket. His father worked for NASA-Ames at the time, and his granddad on his mother's side was a science fiction fan whose library included autographed copies of Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy. Guess what they talked about.
Big ideas in small heads sometimes lead in strange direction. Although active in his youth in baseball and soccer (1980 Advanced Mustang League Champions), Jeff also spent a lot of time reading Frank Baum, James Michener, Jean M. Auel, Stephen King, John Irving, Wendy Pini, John Varley and Joe Haldeman.
Mom and dad probably should have made him watch more TV. Those writers were heavy-duty influences and more than anything what they taught was scale, the idea that the world is bigger and much stranger than Hometown U.S.A. With a head full of independence, Jeff left high school at age fifteen after acing the California High School Equivalency Exam.
Don't try this at home, kids. A good chunk of his newfound freedom was spent on such thrilling activities as running a cash register at Super 7, but he also wrote an epic novel of approximately a million words, borrowing heavily from The Stand and The Hotel New Hampshire. That's right. A hauntingly beautiful apocalypse. It garnered no more than the usual rejection letters, but another thing Jeff had learned was the persistence of vision.
He attended college in Arizona, where he earned a B.A. in English Literature.
Soon he moved back to the coast after buying a sport coat, taking meetings in Hollywood, and acquiring an agent. Ultimately the decision to return to California proved the best of his life because it led him to his wife, Diana, who is smart and pretty and sweet.
Like many creative types, Jeff has a ridiculous employment history. From the semi-autobiographical short story "Meme," published in Fantastic Stories:
"There is no such thing as a part time job that is both meaningful and well paid. Most aren't either. Including his stints as a gas jockey during high school, Alan Lilly has held nineteen positions in at least seven separate fields, so his expectations are as low as mud. Driver, pressman, salesman, waiter, phone rep, cashier—he rarely stays more than twelve months and several times he's quit after one shift.
"He is not a slacker, thief or trouble-maker. He's a musician. He has better things to do."
In real life Jeff has also worked in construction and in credit investigation, and he still does freelance editing-and-adapting of translations of Japanese manga for clients such as Dark Horse Comics and VIZ.
Most recently he is a House Dad Writer Guy, spending a lot of time with Elmo and Dr. Seuss (and a little bit, still, with the work of writers like Jonathan Kellerman, Nelson DeMille, and John Scalzi) while finding room for his third novel; a fourth novel in collaboration with New York Times bestselling author David Brin; skiing; backpacking; NFL games; South Park; Jethro Tull; and sushi-and-a-movie dates with his wife.
Jeff's first novel, high concept thriller Plague Year, sold to Ace/Penguin after a small bidding war between two publishers and strong interest from a third. Plague Year hit stores everywhere in mass market paperback in August 2007.
Audio rights sold to Recorded Books and Audible.com, who will release Plague Year on CD and as a digital download in June 2008.
In Europe, Spanish language rights to Plague Year went to Minotauro in a preemptive bid over its rival publisher Plaza RHM. Minotauro will release the book in trade paperback, date still to be announced.
German language rights went to Piper Verlag in best bid auction over its rival publisher Heyne. Piper will release the book in a mass market edition in September 2008.
Meanwhile, a sequel entitled Plague War is scheduled for release in North America in July 2008. Jeff is currently working on a new stand-alone thriller as well as a third book to complete the nanotech Plague trilogy.
His collaboration with David Brin is the first of a new adventure series entitled Colony High, with at least two more books already outlined. Jeff also writes parenting articles and has a nonfiction book proposal in the works, as well as a collection of humor and how-to essays about life in the trenches as a house dad.
To date, Jeff's short fiction has also sold in two foreign languages. “The Frozen Sky” is slated to appear in a Turkish edition of Writers of the Future XXIII, and several of his stories have been reprinted in Hebrew in the Israeli sci fi magazines Bli-Panika and Mercury.
Jeff lives with his wife and sons in California, and welcomes correspondence via email at jeff.jverse.com.
© Jeff Carlson 2007, 2008
