Ken T

Lifetime science-fiction, fantasy, adventure, dystopian, and apocalyptic fan, across short stories, books, graphic novels, indie films, and major motion pictures. Forty-five years of collecting, reading, and enjoying the field.

As a child I read every Marvel and DC comic I could get my hands on. The ones I preferred, though, were Robert E. Howard’s: Conan, Kull, and Red Sonja, and everything those worlds have grown into. My teenage years were marked by reading every novel I could find by Frank Herbert, Robert E. Howard, Arthur C. Clarke, Tolkien, and Isaac Asimov. Since 1980 I have stayed deep in Herbert’s Dune and Howard’s sword-and-sorcery, and beyond those names are countless universes, locales, and half-forgotten corners opened by writers of every level of vision, craft, and fame, or none at all.

My love of RPGs started in 1979, when I picked up an original white-box Dungeons & Dragons (1974, TSR) at a garage sale and became a lifelong tabletop RPG player, not only of D&D but of the wider hobby. That love carried into the digital age with Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra (1991) and D&D: Eye of the Beholder (1991), then Fallout (1997) and Valve’s Half-Life (1998), and on through countless other worlds: The Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, Crysis, Dead Space, Dragon Age, Assassin’s Creed, and many more. Nearing retirement and old enough to have bought that white box used, but this old dog is still in the books and still in the games.

Kevin J. Anderson (KJA) has become my favorite science fiction writer, for his stellar work in existing universes, especially Dune, and most of all for the universes he has created himself. The Saga of the Seven Suns is his hallmark achievement. I have been a major reader of his since Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina in 1995, and I have followed his work across multiple universes ever since. While stationed in Japan in the mid-1990s, I briefly corresponded with him and helped with a small problem. It still feels like a brush with greatness. I am glad to be backing his Saga of the Seven Suns project on BackerKit!

Finding BackerKit through KJA has been one of the better surprises of later life. In this information age, it is a real pleasure to sit at my desk and back a wide mix of creators, established and new, across books, comics, games, and other formats.