John Brunner (1934 – 1995)

He was born at Preston Crowmarsh in Oxfordshire, and went to school at Cheltenham. He wrote his first novel Galactic Storm at 17, under the name of Gill Hunt, but did not write full time until 1958. In the meantime, he served as an officer in the Royal Air Force, 1953 to 1955. He married Marjorie Rosamond Sauer on July 12, 1958.

At first writing conventional space opera, he began to experiment with the novel form. His 1968 novel The Jagged Orbit won the British SF Award in 1971.

Brunner's best-known work is perhaps 1975's The Shockwave Rider, in which he coined the term "worm", used to describe malicious software.

His pen names include: K. H. Brunner, Gill Hunt, John Loxmith, Trevor Staines and Keith Woodcott.

His health began to decline in the 1980s, and worsened with the death of his wife in 1986. He remarried, to Li Yi Tan, September 27, 1991, then died of a stroke in Glasgow, Scotland, while attending the World Science Fiction Convention there.