Arthur Byron Cover (born January 14, 1950, in

Grundy, Virginia Grundy is a town in Buchanan County, Virginia, Buchanan County, Virginia, United States, an area located within the Appalachian Mountains region. It is the county seat of Buchanan County. The town is home to the Appalachian School of Law. The pop ...

) is an American

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

author. Cover attended the Clarion Writer's SF Workshop in

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

in 1971, and made his first professional short-story sale to

Harlan Ellison Harlan Jay Ellison (May 27, 1934 – June 28, 2018) was an American writer, known for his prolific and influential work in New Wave science fiction, New Wave speculative fiction and for his outspoken, combative personality. His published wo ...

's '' The Last Dangerous Visions''. Cover's short stories have appeared in ''Infinity Five'', ''Alternities'', ''The Alien Condition'', '' Weird Heroes'' #6, ''The Year's Best Horror'' #4 and #5, ''

Wild Cards ''Wild Cards'' is a series of science fiction superhero shared universe anthologies, mosaic novels, and solo novels. They are written by a collection of more than forty authors (referred to as the "Wild Cards Trust") and are edited by George R. ...

#5: Down & Dirty'', and '' Pulphouse''. He has also written several

comic book A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and wri ...

s, including two issues of '' Daredevil'' (one of them with Ellison), and ''Space Clusters'', a graphic novel from

DC Comics DC Comics (originally DC Comics, Inc., and also known simply as DC) is an American comic book publisher owned by DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC is an initialism for "Detective Comics", an American comic book seri ...

illustrated by Alex Niño — plus several animation scripts, and reviews and articles for such august publications as ''

The New York Review of Science Fiction ''The New York Review of Science Fiction'' is a monthly literary magazine of science fiction that was established in 1988. It includes works of science fiction criticism, essays, and in-depth critical reviews of new works of fiction and scholarsh ...

''. Cover's first novel, ''Autumn Angels'', was the second of

's Discovery Series of new authors for Pyramid Books, and was nominated for a

Nebula Award The Nebula Awards annually recognize the best works of science fiction or fantasy published in the United States. The awards are organized and awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA), a nonprofit association of pr ...

. The novel has been described as "a stylistic cross-breed of Ellison and Vonnegut, and as such both predates and bests

Douglas Adams Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author, humorist, and screenwriter, best known as the creator of ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the ...

in creating a comic, literary fantasy." Cover was also a judge for the 2005 Philip K. Dick Award.

Bibliography

Buffyverse

* '' Night of the Living Rerun'' (1998)

Other works

* ''Autumn Angels'' (1975) * ''The Platypus of Doom and Other Nihilists'' (1976) — a collection of 4 novelettes: **"The Platypus of Doom" **"The Armadillo of Destruction" **"The Aardvark of Despair" **"The Clam of Catastrophe" * ''The Sound of Winter'' (Pyramid Books, 1976) * ''An East Wind Coming'' (1979) — from the cover: ""An immortal Sherlock Holmes: a deathless Jack the Ripper! in a fantasy duel through the corridors of time." * ''

Flash Gordon Flash Gordon is the protagonist of a space adventure comic strip created and originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by, and created to compete with, the already established ''Buck Rogers'' ...

'' (1980) — novelization of the screenplay by Michael Allin and Lorenzo Semple Jr. * '' Time Machine'' ** ''The Rings of Saturn'' (No. 6) ** ''American Revolutionary'' (No. 10) ** ''Blade of the Guillotine'' (No. 14, 1986) * ''Space Clusters'' (1986) * '' Planetfall'' (1988) * ''Isaac Asimov's Robot City: Prodigy'' (#4, 1988) * '' Stationfall'' (1989) *'' The Rising Stars Trilogy (2002-2005) - Based on the comic book series by

J. Michael Straczynski Joseph Michael Straczynski, known as J. Michael Straczynski (; born July 17, 1954) is an American filmmaker and comic book writer. He is the founder of Synthetic Worlds Ltd. and Studio JMS and is known as the creator of the science fiction televi ...

**"Rising Stars Book 1: Born In Fire" (2002) **"Rising Stars Book 2: Ten Years After" (2002) **"Rising Stars Book 3: Change the World" (2005) * '' The Red Star'' (2003) * ''Brainticket: Three Novellas of Science Fiction'' (2020) * ''The Quantum Pirate & The 7 Rules of Life'' (2023)

Television credits

* '' The Transformers'' (1986) * '' Defenders of the Earth'' (1986) * '' Bionic Six'' (1987) * '' Spiral Zone'' (1987) * ''

Dinosaucers ''Dinosaucers'' is a 1987 animated television series co-produced in the United States and Canada; developed and produced by DIC Animation City in association with Lightyear Entertainment and Coca-Cola Telecommunications. The show was created b ...

'' (1987) * '' Starcom: The U.S. Space Force'' (1987) * '' The Real Ghostbusters'' (1987) * '' Transformers: Generation 2'' (1993) * '' Phantom 2040'' (1995)

References

External links

*
Review of ''Autumn Angels''
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cover, Arthur Byron 1950 births Living people American science fiction writers 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American male novelists 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers Novelists from Virginia People from Grundy, Virginia Writers of Sherlock Holmes pastiches