On his website (http://www.capcollege.bc.ca/ magic/cmns/crofpers.html), Crawford Kilian offers this self-characterization: "I'm a teacher and writer in Vancouver, BC, Canada, with interests in fiction, journalism, Webwriting, education, the environment, and social issues in general--especially the society of the Internet." Despite the demands of his full-time teaching job and his prolific journalistic output, he has produced more than twelve volumes of science fiction and fantasy. Unlike other science-fiction writers who have immigrated to Canada, however, Kilian has not inaugurated any revolutions in the genre, though he has rung changes on several time-honored generic conventions; most of these changes are explainable in terms of his liberal politics.

Crawford Kilian was born in New York City on 7 February 1941 to Victor William Cosgrove Kilian, a writer and engineer, and Verne Debney Kilian, a teacher. Six months after his birth the family moved to Los Angeles, California...