Sean Stewart is a member of the new generation of Canadian science-fiction writers following the trail to American readership blazed by Charles de Lint and American expatriates such as William Gibson and Spider Robinson. Stewart is winning acclaim both within the science-fiction community and from the Canadian and American press: each of his first two books received the Aurora Award for best novel, and his third, Resurrection Man (1995), was cited by The New York Times as a 1995 Notable Book. His fellow writers speak of him in superlatives, and popular reviews compare him to the best of those contemporaries: Margaret Atwood, Ursula K. Le Guin, and even J. R. R. Tolkien.

Stewart was born Michael Sean Irwin on 2 June 1965 in Lubbock, Texas, to Kay Lanette (née Thornton) Irwin, an English professor, and Louis Irwin, a biochemist. His parents divorced when Sean was quite young. His mother soon...