Craig Shaw Gardner is the author of four trilogies for Ace Books: the fantasy spoof The Exploits of Ebenezum, comprising A Malady of Magicks (1986), A Multitude of Monsters (1986), and A Night in the Netherhells (1987); its sequel, The Ballad of Wuntvor: A Difficulty with Dwarves (1987), An Excess of Enchantments (1988), and A Disagreement with Death (1989); the SF spoof trilogy The Cineverse Cycle: Slaves of the Volcano Gods (1989), Bride of the Slime Monster (1990), and Revenge of the Fluffy Bunnies (1990); and an Arabian Nights trilogy: The Other Sinbad (1991), A Bad Day For Ali Baba (1992), and The Last Arabian Night (1993; 1992, Headline (UK) as Scheherazade’s Night Out). The first three trilogies have been published as omnibuses from the SFBC. Dragon Sleeping, (Ace, 1994) did indeed turn out to start a trilogy, and was followed by Dragon Waking (Ace, 1995) and Dragon Burning (Ace, 1996). Another trilogy (supposedly written by one “Peter Garrison”) came out after that: The Changeling War, The Sorcerer’s Gun (both Ace, 1999), and The Magic Dead (Ace, 2000). His more recent credits include an original horror novel, Dark Whispers, written under the name Chris Blaine, the story collection The Little Purple Book of Peculiar Stories (Borderlands Press), stories in Imaginings (Keith de Candido, ed.), Weird Trails (Darrell Schweitzer, ed.) and Quietly Now (Kealan Patrick Burke, ed.), and a regular book review column for H.P. Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror. His novella, An Embarrassment of Elves was included in The Fair Folk, edited by Marvin Kaye, which won this year’s World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology.

Craig has also written novelizations of the film Lost Boys (Berkeley, 1987), the game Wishbringer (Avon, 1988), and the films Batman (Warner, 1989), Back to the Future 2 and 3 (Berkeley, 1989 and 1990), and Batman Returns (1992). His novel The Batman Murders (Warner, 1990) was the first title in a series of original Batman novels. Of late, he has written deeply serious books concerning Spider-Man and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. His short horror and fantasy fiction has appeared in Halflings, Hobbits, Warrows and Weefolk (Searles and Thomsen, eds.), Shadows 8 and 9 (Grant, ed.), Halloween Horrors, The First Year’s Best Fantasy (Windling and Datlow, ed.), The Ultimate Werewolf, Freak Show, In the Fog, and The Game’s Afoot. Among his proudest accomplishments are wearing a gorilla suit in public and repeatedly hosting the Kirk Poland Memorial Bad Prose Competition with a straight face. He lives in Arlington, Massachusetts. You can find out more about Craig’s Fabulous Lifestyle by visiting www.CraigShawGardner.com.