Named one of TIME magazine's "100 Most Influential People," Robert Lanza is a renowned scientist and author whose groundbreaking research spans many fields, from biology to theoretical physics. He has worked with some of the greatest minds of our time, including Jonas Salk and B.F. Skinner. A U.S. News and World Report cover story called him "the living embodiment of the character played by Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting" and described him as a "genius," a "renegade thinker," and likened him to Einstein. He is the father of Biocentrism, the basis of Observer, his first novel. He has been pondering the larger existential questions since he was a young boy, when for play he took excursions deep into the forests of eastern Massachusetts observing nature (like Emerson and Thoreau, who grew up just a few miles from him). This fascination with the nature of life infused his entire career, leading him to the very frontiers of biology and science. Nancy Kress is the author of thirty-five books, including twenty-seven novels, four collections of short stories, and three books on writing. Her work has won six Nebula Awards, two Hugo Awards, a Sturgeon, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Her most recent works are a stand-alone novella about genetic engineering, Sea Change (Tachyon, 2020) and a science fiction novel of power and money, The Eleventh Gate (Baen, 2020). Her fiction has been translated into nearly two dozen languages including Klingon. She has taught writing in Leipzig, Beijing, and throughout the U.S. Nancy lives in Seattle with her husband, writer Jack Skillingstead.