Jeff Carlson (author)

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Jeff Carlson

Jeff G. Carlson (born 20 July 1969) is an American writer of thriller novels and science fiction. His work often deals with themes of sacrifice and redemption. Evolutionary stresses, interdependence, and the extremes of human endurance are also regularly featured in his writing, as in his debut novel Plague Year, a present-day thriller which deals with a worldwide nanotech contagion that devours all warm-blooded life below 10,000 feet elevation, and in his award-winning story “The Frozen Sky”, a near-future adventure which deals with the surprise discovery of an intelligent amphibian species in the oceans beneath the frozen surface of Jupiter’s sixth moon, Europa.

Carlson was born in Sunnyvale, California, and has since lived in several cities up and down the coast. During several years in the early 1990’s, he also lived in Arizona, Colorado, and Idaho before returning to his native California in 1997.

His education and employment histories are equally diverse. He left high school at age fifteen after passing the California High School Equivalency Examination and now holds a B.A. in English Literature. His past jobs include driver, pressman, salesman, waiter, phone rep, cashier and construction worker. This range of experience shows in much of his writing. Although he is Caucasian himself, his writing often features minority and/or female protagonists, one example being the African-American character Julie Beauchain, a wildlife ranger in the stories “Gunfight At The Sugarloaf Pet Food & Taxidermy” and “The Big Bad Brain of Julie Beauchain.” Hispanics have leading roles in his short story “Pressure” and in the novels Plague Year and War Day.

Carlson also writes nonfiction. He lives with his family near San Francisco.