Stith, John E
Entry updated 28 April 2025. Tagged: Author.
(1947- ) US software engineering manager and author who began to publish sf with "Early Winter" in Fantastic for July 1979. His first novel, Scapescope (1984) – which is Hard SF like all his work – uses his work experience at the NORAD Cheyenne Mountain Complex to extrapolate on the nature of a defense complex in that location two centuries hence. Memory Blank (1986) places a classic sf protagonist – a hero with Amnesia – on an L-5 Space Habitat (see Lagrange Point). Death Tolls (1987) is a detective mystery set on a terraformed Mars (see also Terraforming), and Deep Quarry (1989), set on a planet far from the solar system (to which Stith had previously restricted himself), pits a private eye against various mysteries in a hard-boiled style. More impressive than any of these is Redshift Rendezvous (1990), set on a Faster-than-Light starship travelling through a version of Hyperspace in which the speed of light is so low (22mph [35kph]) that Relativity effects are visible in everyday situations. Within this intriguingly presented environment, a murder mystery, a hijack and other events occur; but the appeal of the novel lies in the playing-out of the concept – or Thought Experiment – at its heart. Manhattan Transfer (1993), in which an alien force matter-transmits the island heart of New York elsewhere for reasons unknown, Reunion on Neverend (1994), a crime thriller, and Reckoning Infinity (1997), about the discovery in space of an Alien artefact, continued to demonstrate considerable storytelling energy.
After a period of silence in his sf publishing career, Stith returned in 2020 with a number of Flash Fiction stories for the "Futures" department of Nature, and the Young Adult Tiny Time Machine sequence beginning with Tiny Time Machine (January 2021 Amazing; 2021), tales centered on a Time Gate accessible through the cellphone invented (see Invention) by one of the protagonist's missing father. In the standalone Space Opera Disavowed (2025), a bureaucratic mixup (described with a kneejerk disdain traditional to twentieth-century Hard SF adventures) misdirects a warship into assaulting an innocent planet; the ship surgeon (with indwelling AI) survives, establishes First Contact with the Uplifted species native to the planet, and wins through. [JC]
see also: Imaginary Science.
John Edward Stith
born Boulder, Colorado: 30 July 1947
works (selected)
series
Tiny Time Machine
- Tiny Time Machine (Hillsboro, New Hampshire: Experimenter Publishing Company/Amazing Selects, 2021) [first appeared January 2021 Amazing: Tiny Time Machine: illus/pb/Nikolett Timar]
- Return of the Father (Hillsboro, New Hampshire: Experimenter Publishing Company/Amazing Selects, 2024) [first appeared April 2023 Amazing: Tiny Time Machine: illus/pb/Nikolett Timar]
- Mother of Invention (Hillsboro, New Hampshire: Experimenter Publishing Company/Amazing Selects, 2024) [first appeared March 2024 Amazing: Tiny Time Machine: illus/pb/Anderson Cabral]
- Tiny Time Machine (Hillsboro, New Hampshire: Experimenter Publishing Company/Amazing Selects, 2024) [omni of the above three: Tiny Time Machine: pb/]
individual titles
- Scapescope (New York: Ace Books, 1984) [pb/Barclay Shaw]
- Memory Blank (New York: Ace Books, 1986) [pb/Don Brautigam]
- Death Tolls (New York: Ace Books, 1987) [pb/Neil Shigley]
- Deep Quarry (New York: Ace Books, 1989) [pb/Richard Hescox]
- Redshift Rendezvous (New York: Ace Books/Science Fiction Book Club, 1990) [hb/Ron Walotsky]
- Manhattan Transfer (New York: Tor, 1993) [hb/Darrell K Sweet]
- Reunion on Neverend (New York: Tor, 1994) [hb/Kelly Freas]
- Reckoning Infinity (New York: Tor, 1997) [hb/Vladimir Nenov]
- Disavowed (Hillsboro, New Hampshire: Experimenter Publishing Company/Amazing Selects, 2025) [pb/]
collections
- All for Naught (Holicong, Pennsylvania: Wildside Press, 2005) [coll: pb/]
links
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