Charles Sheffield was born on June 25, 1935, in Kingston Upon Hull, Yorkshire, England.

Charles Sheffield studied at St John’s College, Cambridge, where he graduated in mathematics and physics. There he met Sarah Anderson, who became his first wife: they had a son and a daughter. After the wedding, the family moved to the USA where Sheffield worked on various physics applications. During his activities, he also wrote many articles and some scientific essays.

In 1977, after his wife’s death, Charles Sheffield started a career as a science fiction writer. His first story was “What Song the Sirens Sang”, published in the magazine “Galaxy”. Over time he built a reputation as a writer of hard science fiction but also wrote stories for kids or anyway lighthearted. In some cases, however, his stories aimed at a young audience had quite dark tones.

Most of the stories written by Charles Sheffield can be included in various cycles. Among the first stories published, there were some of the series of Waldo Burmeister & Henry Carver, Space Attorneys, collected in 2001 in the anthology “Space Suits”. In the late ’70s, he also published his first stories in the series of Arthur Morton McAndrew, collected in 2000 in the anthology “The Compleat McAndrew”.

The first published novel by Charles Sheffield, “Sight of Proteus” (1978), was also formed fixing up three stories. It’s the first of the Proteus cycle and was followed by “Proteus Unbound” in 1989 and “Proteus in the Underworld” in 1995.

The novel “The Web Between the Worlds” in 1979 features the construction of a space elevator. It was published almost simultaneously with “The Fountains of Paradise” by Arthur C. Clarke, which had the same theme. It was just a coincidence, though a curious one.

In 1982, Charles Sheffield published the first story in a series devoted to Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin’s grandfather. The stories were collected in 2002 in the anthology “The Amazing Dr. Darwin” but later the author published another one.

In the following years, Charles Sheffield published more short fiction and novels such as “Between the Strokes of Night” (1985), “The Nimrod Hunt” (1986), republished in an expanded version in 1993 as “The Mind Pool” and its sequel “The Spheres of Heaven” in 2001.

In 1990, Charles Sheffield published the first novel of the Heritage cycle, “Summertide“. This archaeological science fiction story had some sequels: “Divergence” in 1991, “Transcendence” in 1992, “Convergence” in 1997, and “Resurgence” in 2002.

In 1992, Charles Sheffield published the novel “Cold as Ice”, set at the end of the 21st century, when humanity colonized the solar system. The same fictional universe is the setting for the novels “The Ganymede Club” (1998) and “Dark as Day” (2002).

In the ’90s, Charles Sheffield won the John Wood Campbell Memorial Award for his novel “Brother to Dragons” (1992) and the Hugo and Nebula awards for the novelette “Georgia on My Mind” in 1993.

Charles Sheffield collaborated with Jerry Pournelle to write the young adult novel “Higher Education”, published in 1996. Sheffield wrote other novels with the same setting creating another cycle: “The Billion Dollar Boy” (1997), “Putting Up Roots” (1997), and “The Cyborg from Earth” (1998).

Charles Sheffield died on November 2, 2002, due to a brain tumor. At the time he was married to his fellow writer Nancy Kress. His career wasn’t very long because it started when the author was already over 40 and yet he was able to offer us many novels and short fiction that covered many different themes generally with good quality.