William B. Fawcett (born May 13, 1947)[1] is an American editor, anthologist, game designer, book packager, fiction writer, and historian.
Lifeedit
Fawcett and fellow science fiction writer Jody Lynn Nye were married in 1987. They first met at a science fiction convention in 1985. At that time, Fawcett owned a gaming company in Niles, Illinois, and Nye began to work as a freelance writer for the company.[2]
Careeredit
Bill Fawcett was one of the players in early Dungeons & Dragons games being played in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas, using photocopied prototypes of the rules handed out by Gary Gygax.[3]: 166 Darwin Bromley brought Fawcett on as a partner in Mayfair Games soon after the company was formed in 1980, and they worked together to design the game Empire Builder (1980).[3]: 166 As a veteran role-playing gamer, Fawcett got Mayfair involved in the RPG field, and the company kicked off its Role Aids line with Beastmaker Mountain (1982).[3]: 166 Fawcett was friends with Robert Asprin and Lynn Abbey, and FASA was able to leverage their connection with Mayfair to obtain a license to publish Thieves' World role-playing game adventures from 1982–1984.[3]: 120, 167 Fawcett and Jordan Weisman designed the robot arena fighting game Combots (1983) for FASA.[3]: 121
Fawcett produced the Crossroads books (1987–1988), a series of licensed gamebooks published by Tor.[3]: 168 He also authored the short-lived SwordQuest gamebooks series.[4] He edited the book The War Years 1: The Far Stars War (1990).[5] With David Drake, he co-edited The Fleet series (1988-1991), as well as its sequels, Battlestation, Book One (1992), and Battlestation, Book Two: Vanguard (1993).[6] As a book packager, Fawcett was able to arrange a publishing deal between Wizards of the Coast and HarperCollins for novels set in the Magic: The Gathering multiverse of Dominia; the first novel in this series was Arena (1994).[3]: 278
His 2008 book, Oval Office Oddities, was described as "Chock-full of information—trivia, anecdotes, charts, illustrations, etc." focusing on the lives of American presidents and their wives.[7]
Mooney, J. E. & Bill Fawcett (eds.). Shadows of the New Sun : stories in honor of Gene Wolfe. Tor.
Referencesedit
^"Fawcett, Bill". Library of Congress Authorities (lccn.loc.gov). Retrieved October 19, 2018.
^Scalf, Abby (July 24, 1998). "Wauconda native creates fantasy worlds for readers". Daily Herald. Archived from the original on December 14, 2019. Retrieved January 7, 2019.
^Ings, Simon (Summer 1991). "'The Far Stars War' edited by Bill Fawcett (Book Review)". Foundation: 105.
^ abcWestfahl, Gary (Summer 1994). "'Battlestation' edited by David Drake and Bill Fawcett (Book Review)". Foundation: 118.
^ abBudasi, Teresa (March 2, 2008). "In praise of bathroom reading". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on March 29, 2015. Retrieved February 4, 2015.
^ abTeri Smith and Jean Marie Ward (1998). "Author interview: "Bill Fawcett: Admitting to Influence". Crescent Blues. Retrieved January 8, 2013.
^"Asprin, Robert L(ynn) 1946-". Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series. January 1, 2005. Archived from the original on March 29, 2015. Retrieved February 21, 2015.
^ ab"Thomsen, Brian M." Contemporary Authors. January 1, 2007. Archived from the original on March 29, 2015. Retrieved February 22, 2015.
^ abc"Kurtz, Katherine 1944- (Katherine Irene Kurtz)". Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series. January 1, 2008. Archived from the original on March 29, 2015. Retrieved February 22, 2015.
^Green, Roland J. (July 5, 1992). "John Varley's Wacky Future Lunar Society". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on March 29, 2015. Retrieved February 22, 2015.
^Douchette, John-Henry (May 3, 1998). "Inside the Nacy SEALs War Stories by Sea, Air and Land". The Virginian-Pilot. Norfolk, VA. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
^Flaherty, Dolores; Flaherty, Roger (July 26, 1998). "Lonely explorers of isolated lives". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on March 29, 2015. Retrieved February 4, 2015.
^Shenfeld, Hilary (September 22, 1997). "Making Contact: Most Scientists Agree That Humans Will Discover Life on Other Planets Someday, but What If That Life Finds You First? A Wauconda Man's Book Tells You What to Do". Daily Herald. Arlington Heights, IL.[dead link]
^"Flint, Eric 1947–". Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series. January 1, 2006. Archived from the original on March 29, 2015. Retrieved February 4, 2015.
^"Ward, James M. 1951- (James Michael Ward, Jim Ward)". Contemporary Authors. January 1, 2008. Archived from the original on March 29, 2015. Retrieved February 5, 2015.
^Kelly, Marguerite (November 30, 2007). "Time to Pull the Plug on Son's Gaming Habit". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
^Esser, Doug (July 9, 2006). "Take a hike, go on a date, explore space—Northwest style". The Columbian. Vancouver, WA. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved December 7, 2014.