The Future Makers
Science fiction, American Science Fiction, Anthology, English Short stories
Peter Haining, Theodore Sturgeon, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Sheckley, Brian W. Aldiss, Isaac Asimov
Theodore Sturgeon was born Edward Hamilton Waldo in Staten Island, New York.  He changed his name in 1929, choosing Sturgeon to match his mother's surname after her second marriage, and "Theodore" to match his nickname, "Teddy."  His mother, Christine Hamilton Dicker Sturgeon, was a well-educated writer, watercolorist, and poet who published journalism, poetry and fiction under the pseudonym Felix Sturgeon.

As an adolescent, Sturgeon wanted to be a circus acrobat, but then had an episode of rheumatic fever.  From 1935 to 1938, he was a sailor in the merchant marine. He sold his first story in 1938, and his first science fiction story, "Ether Breather" was published in Astounding Science Fiction in 1939.  A few of his early pulp stories were published under the pseudonym "E. Waldo Hunter."  

He married his first wife, Dorothe Fillingame, in 1940.  That year, they moved to the West Indies, where Sturgeon managed a hotel for about a year.  He served in the U.S. Army during World War II, and in 1944 he returned to the U.S. and worked as an advertising copywriter.  He divorced in 1945, and married singer Mary Mair in 1949 until an annulment in 1951.  In 1950, he published his first novel, The Dreaming Jewels.  In 1951, he married Marion McGahan and they had a son in 1952, a daughters in 1954, a daughter in 1956, and a son in 1960.  In 1963, he ghost-wrote the Ellery Queen mystery novel The Player on the Other Side, which received critical praise.  He wrote two screenplays for the television show Star Trek in 1966 and 1967, and one screenplay for the show Land of the Lost in 1975, and two of his stories were adapted for The New Twilight Zone.  At the height of his popularity in the 1950s he was the most anthologized author alive.

His last long-term committed relationship was with writer and educator Jayne Engelhart Tannehill, with whom he remained until the time of his death.  He died in May of 1985 of lung fibrosis, in Eugene, Oregon. || Ray Bradbury is one of those rare individuals whose writing has changed the way people think. His more than five hundred published works -- short stories, novels, plays, screenplays, television scripts, and verse -- exemplify the American imagination at its most creative. 

Once read, his words are never forgotten. His best-known and most beloved books, *The Martian Chronicles*, *The Illustrated Man*, *Fahrenheit 451* and *Something Wicked This Way Comes*, are masterworks that readers carry with them over a lifetime. His timeless, constant appeal to audiences young and old has proven him to be one of the truly classic authors of the 20th Century -- and the 21st. 

In recognition of his stature in the world of literature and the impact he has had on so many for so many years, Bradbury was awarded the National Book Foundation's 2000 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, an the National Medal of Arts in 2004. 

([Source][1])


  [1]: http://www.raybradbury.com/about.html || Sir Arthur Charles Clarke CBE FRAS was a British science fiction writer, science writer and futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host.

He is famous for being co-writer of the screenplay for the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, widely considered to be one of the most influential films of all time. Clarke was a science writer, who was both an avid populariser of space travel and a futurist of uncanny ability. On these subjects he wrote over a dozen books and many essays, which appeared in various popular magazines. In 1961 he was awarded the Kalinga Prize, an award which is given by UNESCO for popularising science. These along with his science fiction writings eventually earned him the moniker "Prophet of the Space Age". His other science fiction writings earned him a number of Hugo and Nebula awards, which along with a large readership made him one of the towering figures of science fiction. For many years Clarke, Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov were known as the "Big Three" of science fiction.

Clarke was a lifelong proponent of space travel. In 1934, while still a teenager, he joined the British Interplanetary Society. In 1945, he proposed a satellite communication system using geostationary orbits. He was the chairman of the British Interplanetary Society from 1946–1947 and again in 1951–1953.

Clarke emigrated from England to Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) in 1956, largely to pursue his interest in scuba diving. That year he discovered the underwater ruins of the ancient Koneswaram temple in Trincomalee. Clarke augmented his fame later on in the 1980s, from being the host of several television shows such as Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World. He lived in Sri Lanka until his death.

Clarke was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1989 "for services to British cultural interests in Sri Lanka". He was knighted in 1998 and was awarded Sri Lanka's highest civil honour, Sri Lankabhimanya, in 2005.

---From Wikipedia || Robert Sheckley (July 16, 1928 – December 9, 2005) was an American writer. First published in the science-fiction magazines of the 1950s, his many quick-witted stories and novels were famously unpredictable, absurdist, and broadly comical.

Nominated for Hugo and Nebula Awards, Sheckley was named Author Emeritus by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2001. || Asimov was born sometime between October 4, 1919 and January 2, 1920 in Petrovichi in Smolensk Oblast, RSFSR (now Russia), the son of a Jewish family of millers.  Although his exact date of birth is uncertain, Asimov himself celebrated it on January 2.  His family emigrated to Brooklyn, New York and opened a candy store when he was three years old.  He taught himself to read at the age of five. He began reading the science fiction pulp magazines that his family's store carried. Around the age of eleven, he began to write his own stories, and by age nineteen, he was selling them to the science fiction magazines. He graduated from Columbia University in 1939. He married Gertrude Blugerman in 1942.  During World War II he worked as a civilian at the Philadelphia Navy Yard's Naval Air Experimental Station.  After the war, he returned to Columbia University and earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1948.  He then joined the faculty of the Boston University School of Medicine until 1958, when he became a full-time writer. His first novel, [Pebble in the Sky](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL46402W), was published in 1950. He and his wife divorced in 1973, and he married Janet O. Jeppson the same year. He was a highly prolific writer, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 9,000 letters and postcards.