John Christian Roberson (born August 25, 1970), known professionally as Chris Roberson, is an American science fiction author and publisher who is best known for alternate history novels and short stories.
Early life
Roberson grew up near Dallas, Texas, and attended the University of Texas at Austin. After graduating with a degree in English literature and a minor in history, he leaned towards becoming a literary, post-modernist writer and penned a couple of novels in that style, which went unpublished as Roberson realized that he "wasn't depressed enough for that line of work".[1] In the 1990s, Roberson wrote a couple of mystery novels but the end results turned out to be a mix of mystery and science fiction genres, so the publishers specializing in either of those rejected them. Ultimately, Roberson settled on writing science fiction, citing his upbringing in the 1970s and 1980s as the major inspiration, since the genre was particularly commonplace in America at that time:
"Everything from Saturday-morning cartoons to comic books to late-night B-movies to pulp novel reprints to blockbuster summer movies--it was all science fiction, in one form or another."[1]
During this period, Roberson had a variety of day jobs, such as a product support engineer for Dell computers, a position he held for seven years and quit in 2003 to concentrate on his work as a writer and publisher.
Career
Between 1998 and 2002, Roberson was part of the writer's collective Clockwork Storybook, alongside comic book creators Bill Willingham (of Elementals and, later, Fables fame), Matthew Sturges (who would go on to co-write Jack of Fables with Willingham and relaunch House of Mystery for Vertigo) and Mark Finn (also a Robert E. Howard scholar and playwright). Starting as a writing group, Clockwork Storybook developed into a monthly online anthology, then a publishing imprint of the same name. The collective attempted to capitalize on the growing trend of print on demand and launched with four print titles in early 2001. Roberson produced four novels for Clockwork Storybook, three of which were subsequently expanded and reprinted: Voices of Thunder (Feb. 2001) was revised to become Book of Secrets (Angry Robot, 2009), Set the Seas on Fire (Dec. 2001) was expanded for its 2007 release by Solaris, while Any Time at All (Sep. 2002) became Here, There and Everywhere (Pyr, 2005).
After the dissolution of Clockwork Storybook, Roberson decided to focus on his career as a writer and soon after made his first professional sale with the short story for the Live without a Net anthology, edited by Lou Anders and published by Roc. The book was published in 2003 and paved the way for future sales to Asimov's Science Fiction and other anthologies such as Tales of the Shadowmen, Postscripts, Black October Magazine, Fantastic Metropolis, RevolutionSF, Twilight Tales, Opi8, Alien Skin, Electric Velocipede, Subterranean Magazine and Lone Star Stories. The following year, Anders, whom Roberson considered "something of a personal patron", was hired as an editorial director at Prometheus Books' new science fiction imprint Pyr and bought Roberson's Here, There and Everywhere, the first novel in his Bonaventure-Carmody series.
In 2003, Roberson also started up his own small-press publishing house MonkeyBrain, having "discovered <...> in the few years of helping run the CWSB imprint, that [he] really enjoyed being a publisher." Roberson, who runs MonkeyBrain along with his business partner and spouse Allison Baker, decided early on that the company would deal exclusively in "traditional offset trade-paperbacks and hardcovers," distributed internationally, rather than printed on demand.[2] In November, 2005, Roberson edited the first volume in a projected annual series of Adventure anthologies, comprising "original fiction in the spirit of early twentieth-century pulp fiction magazines" across the genres, featuring contributions from Lou Anders, Mark Finn, Paul Di Filippo, Michael Moorcock and Kim Newman.[3]
At the San Diego Comic-Con 2008, it was announced that Roberson was set to write a comic book mini-series set in the universe of the Vertigo series Fables, which was created by fellow former Clockwork Storybook author Bill Willingham. The mini-series, titled Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love and illustrated by Shawn McManus, was described by Roberson as featuring "spies, sex, and shoes."[4] In late 2010, Roberson was selected by DC Comics to complete the "Grounded" story arc in the Superman ongoing series,[5][6] which he worked on alongside his creator-owned Vertigo series iZombie and the Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love sequel mini-series, subtitled Fables are Forever. In 2012, Roberson announced he would no longer write for DC Comics due to their unethical treatment of creators.[7] That same year, MonkeyBrain launched a new publishing arm for creator-owned comics that would focus solely on digital distribution through Comixology.[8][9]
Roberson is a four-time nominee for the World Fantasy Award: as a writer in 2004, an editor and a publisher in 2006 and again a publisher in 2008. He was also nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer on two occasions. In 2009, Roberson won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in the "Long Form" category for The Dragon's Nine Sons. He has also been nominated twice in the "Short Form" category, winning in 2004 with his story "O One". Roberson's novel Paragaea was included in Waterstone's "Top Ten Science Fiction" list in 2006.[11]
Tales of the Bonaventure-Carmody clan, which Roberson first started developing for his Clockwork Storybook novels, continued with a number of short stories:[12]
Revised and expanded reprint of Voices of Thunder (2001)
Celestial Empire
Roberson's alternate history series Celestial Empire began with a number of short stories, which can be sorted in internal chronological order or the publication order:[14]
Roberson picked up the writing duties after J. Michael Straczynski left the title in the middle of the storyline;[18][19] Straczynski is credited as a co-writer on all of Roberson's issues.[20]
The story originally intended for publication in issue #712 (written by Roberson, art by Eddy Barrows)[21] was cancelled on the day of release despite being fully drawn and lettered.[22][23]
A previously unpublished story, unrelated to the "Grounded" storyline (written by Kurt Busiek, drawn by Rick Leonardi), was released as issue #712 instead.[24]
B.P.R.D.: Hell on Earth #140–142 (with Mike Norton, 2016) collected in B.P.R.D.: Hell on Earth Volume 4 (hc, 416 pages, 2019, ISBN1-506-70654-1; tpb, 2022, ISBN1-50672-431-0)
Rise of the Black Flame #1–5 (with Christopher Mitten, 2016–2017) collected as Rise of the Black Flame (tpb, 144 pages, 2017, ISBN1-5067-0155-8)
Witchfinder:
Witchfinder: City of the Dead #1–5 (with Ben Stenbeck, 2016) collected as Witchfinder: City of the Dead (tpb, 144 pages, 2017, ISBN1-5067-0166-3)
Witchfinder: The Gates of Heaven #1–5 (with D'Israeli, 2018) collected as Witchfinder: The Gates of Heaven (tpb, 144 pages, 2019, ISBN1-5067-0683-5)
Witchfinder: The Reign of Darkness #1–5 (with Christopher Mitten, 2019–2020) collected as Witchfinder: The Reign of Darkness (tpb, 144 pages, 2020, ISBN1-506-71406-4)
The Visitor: How and Why He Stayed (tpb, 144 pages, 2017, ISBN1-506-70345-3) collects:
The Visitor: How and Why He Stayed #1–5 (with Paul Grist, 2017)
Hellboy Winter Special 2017: "God Rest Ye Merry" (with Paul Grist, anthology, 2017)
Rasputin: The Voice of the Dragon #1–5 (with Christopher Mitten, 2017) collected as Rasputin: The Voice of the Dragon (tpb, 136 pages, 2018, ISBN1-50670-498-0)
The House of Lost Horizons: A Sarah Jewell Mystery (hc, 144 pages, 2022, ISBN1-506-72006-4) collects:
Hellboy Winter Special 2019: "The Longest Night" (with Leila del Duca, anthology, 2020)
The House of Lost Horizons: A Sarah Jewell Mystery #1–5 (with Leila del Duca, 2021)
Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club #1–5 (with Ben Stenbeck and Christopher Mitten, 2021–2022) collected as Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club (hc, 136 pages, 2022, ISBN1-5067-2816-2)
British Paranormal Society: Time Out of Mind #1–4 (with Andrea Mutti, 2022) collected as British Paranormal Society: Time Out of Mind (hc, 112 pages, 2023, ISBN1-5067-3260-7)
Panya: The Mummy's Curse #1–4 (with Christopher Mitten, 2023) collected as Panya: The Mummy's Curse (hc, 112 pages, 2024, ISBN1-50673-819-2)
The Mysterious Strangers #1–6 (with Scott Kowalchuk, Oni Press, 2013) collected as The Mysterious Strangers: Strange Ways (tpb, 152 pages, 2014, ISBN1-620101-11-4)
Black Bag #1–6 (with J. B. Bastos, Legendary, 2015–2016) collected as Black Bag (tpb, 144 pages, 2016, ISBN1-6811-6027-7)
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 — The Official Comic Collection (hc, 240 pages, 2019, ISBN1-9456-8394-5) includes:
