Piziks, Steven (Steven Harper)

views updated

Piziks, Steven
(Steven Harper)

PERSONAL: Born in Saginaw, MI; married, 1991; wife's name Kathalena; children: one son. Education: Central Michigan University, bachelor's degrees (German/speech and English/health education). Hobbies and other interests: Playing the keyboard and harp; collecting folk music.

ADDRESSES: Home—Ypsilanti, MI. Office—Walled Lake Central High School, 1600 Oakley Park Rd., Commerce, MI 48390. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Roc Books, 375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Fiction writer and educator. Walled Lake Central High School, Walled Lake, MI, English and teen health teacher. Previously worked as a reporter, theater producer, secretary, and substitute teacher.

MEMBER: Untitled Writers Group.

WRITINGS:

SCIENCE FICTION

In the Company of Mind, Baen Books (New York, NY), 1998.

Corporate Mentality, Baen Books (New York, NY), 1999.

The Nanotech War ("Star Trek Voyager" series), Pocket Books (New York, NY) 2002.

Identity (movie novelization), Pocket Books (New York, NY) 2003.

The Exorcist: The Beginning (movie novelization), Pocket Books (New York, NY) 2004.

Contributor of short stories to periodicals, including Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy, Dragon, Electric Wine, Elysian Fiction, and Weird Tales. Contributor of nonfiction to Mother Earth News, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy, and Five Seasons of Angel, Benbella Books, 2004.

UNDER PSEUDONYM STEVEN HARPER: "SILENT EMPIRE" SERIES

Dreamer, Roc Books (New York, NY), 2001.

Nightmare, Roc Books (New York, NY), 2002.

Trickster, Roc Books (New York, NY), 2003.

Offspring, Roc Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor to books and anthologies, including Path of the Just, edited by James Lowder, 2003; Sword and Sorceress IX, DAW Books, 1991; Did You Say Chicks?!, edited by Esther Friesner, Baen Books, 1998; Chicks and Chained Males, edited by Friesner, Baen Books, 1999; Treachery and Treason, edited by Laura Anne Gilman and Jennifer Heddle, Roc Books, 2000; The Chick's in the Mail, edited by Friesner, Baen Books, 2000; and Turn the Other Chick, edited by Friesner, Baen Books, 2004.

WORK IN PROGRESS: An Irish fantasy novel set in the third century; a thriller about the chocolate industry.

SIDELIGHTS: Steven Piziks writes science fiction and fantasy, among other genres, and has published titles under his own name as well as under the pen name Steven Harper. Piziks's first novel, In the Company of Mind, is a science-fiction thriller featuring nanotechnology and a man with multiple personality disorder. The sequel, Corporate Mentality, continues the story of Lance Michaels' children, twins who can trade bodies. The boy and girl do not know who was born in which body. Piziks has also penned two movie novelizations, Identity and The Exorcist: The Beginning, as well as the "Star Trek Voyager" novel The Nanotech War.

Under the pseudonym Steven Harper, Piziks began the "Silent Empire" series with Dreamer, a novel that introduces a future world where people live on many planets in the Empire of Human Unity. Among them are the Silent, cognitively gifted individuals who can enter the Dream, a powerful means of interstellar communication. The Silent are oppressed and enslaved because of their special skill, but are also protected by a monkish order called the Children of Irfan. When Father Kendi Weaver learns of a boy on the planet Rust who can inhabit the bodies of others, he joins in the search to secure the boy from harm or from hurting others.

Dreamer's setting, which Piziks developed in partnership with fellow writer Sarah Zettel, was based on aboriginal Australian myth. Booklist writer Roland Green dubbed the book "a well-told tale" and "intelligent entertainment," while Sheila Shoup praised it as a self-contained and "exceptional first novel" in her review for School Library Journal.

In Nightmare, Father Kendi is involved in the hunt for a serial killer on the planet Bellerophon. This challenge includes adjusting to life as a free man and the pain of entering the dreams of the victims. Roland Green commented in Booklist that the book works as "a thoroughly solid sequel" to Dreamer.

The third "Silent Empire" novel, Trickster, finds Kendi traveling on the ship Poltergeist with his male lover Ben Rymer and a crew dedicated to finding missing family members who have become slaves. While rescuing Kendi's brother and sister, they discover a man who has children with Silent women in order to steal and sell the babies. The story is "fast, furious, and absorbing," according to Booklist reviewer Frieda Murray. Writing in Kliatt, Sherry Hoy remarked on Piziks's "innovative" plot and the fact that Ben and Kendi have the strongest relationship in the book.

The lovers plan to start a family in the fourth series novel, Offspring, but are deterred by catastrophic events caused by the failure of the Dream. Governments and economies are collapsing, and conflicts between species are escalating. The nightmarish conditions are made worse when Ben learns that his parents were a famous hero and an equally notorious criminal. In a Booklist review, Freida Murray noted that the series' "characters and society are as fascinating … as ever."

In an interview with Bridgett M. Redman for Book Help Web site, Piziks discussed the "Silent Empire" series and his plans to develop other novels. "It's like being married" to the characters, he commented, explaining how well he got to know Kendi and Ben over the course of four books and over four years of writing about them. He planned, however, to turn to writing fantasy and modern thrillers: "It's fun to create new ground, to see around the corner. I know Ben and Kendi so well, there aren't any surprises. In the fantasy, we're in the third date stage."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, August, 2001, Roland Green, review of Dreamer, p. 2101; October 1, 2002, Roland Green, review of Nightmare, p. 308; September 15, 2003, Frieda Murray, Trickster, p. 218; October 1, 2004, Frieda Murray, review of Offspring, p. 318.

Chronicle, October, 2002, Don D'Ammassa, review of Nightmare, p. 41.

Kliatt, March, 2004, Sherry Hoy, review of Trickster, p. 26.

Library Journal, September 15, 2001, Jackie Cassada, review of Dreamer, p. 117.

School Library Journal, April, 2002, Sheila Shoup, review of Dreamer, p. 185.

Science Fiction Chronicle, December, 2001, Don D'Ammassa, review of Dreamer, p. 49.