Stephen Baxter was born in 1957. Raised in Liverpool, he has a mathematics degree from the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. from Southampton. He now works in information technology. Baxter sold his first short stories to Interzone in 1986 and is a prizewinner in the Writers of the Future contest. His first novel, Raft, was published in 1991 to great acclaim, and was followed in 1992 by Timelike Infinity. He is married and lives in Buckinghamshire, England.