Timothy Zahn was born in Chicago in 1951 and grew up in the western suburb of Lombard. After spending way too many years studying physics, he quit two years short of a doctorate and began a full-time career writing science fiction.

Since then he has published over eighty short stories and novelettes, thirty-five novels, and four short fiction collections. Somewhere along the way (1984, to be exact), he won a Hugo Award for the novella "Cascade Point."

He is best known for his eight Star Wars books: Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command, Specter of the Past, Vision of the Future, Survivor's Quest, Outbound Flight, and Allegiance. Other books include the Quadrail series, the Cobra series, and the young-adult Dragonback series.

His most recent books are Dragon and Liberator, the sixth Dragonback book, and Odd Girl Out, the third in the Quadrail series. From the Ashes, a prequel novel to the upcoming movie Terminator Salvation, was published in early 2009.

The Zahn family lives on the Oregon coast, where only a tsunami can ruin a perfect day.