Scott Baker

Scott Baker discovered his love of reading in grade school when his mother bet him he couldn't stay up until midnight every night reading Dracula. He finished the book, won 50 cents, slept with the lights on for the next four years, and was hooked for life on science fiction, fantasy, and horror.Scott first attempted a novel in third grade. It was a page long and featured a rocket ship that ran on liquid copper.In college, Scott drifted away from SF, but he was driven back to it by the deadly dullness of U.C. Irvine's Ph.D. program. Abandoning academia, he devoted himself to chemically-assisted hedonism in the Los Padres National Forest. During this time, Scott made several attempts at novels, but it was only after his van was stolen, he lost his job, his girlfriend left, and his roommate stole his rent money that he decided a life devoted to the joys of the moment wasn't all that much fun, so it was time to get serious about writing.Scott wrote four novels-Nightchild, Dhampire, and Symbiote's Crown--before selling Symbiote's Crown. By the time it was published, Scott and his wife were living in the archetypical writer's garret, a cramped fifth-floor walk-up in Paris. Symbiote's Crown won the 1982 Prix Apollo for best French science fiction novel of the year.Scott stayed in Paris for twenty years, working as translator and publisher's reader. He collaborated on several film scripts, working with directors such as Raoul Ruiz, Chile's former Minister of Culture. One film, Litan, won the Critic's prize at the Avoriaz Film Festival.He also began writing shorter fiction. Four of Scott's stories were World Fantasy Award finalists and Still Life with Scorpion won the World Fantasy Award. He has three short story collections published in France.Scott's next two novels, Drink the Fire from the Flames and Firedance, were fantasies set in the world of Ashlu. Inscrutable editorial imperatives meant that Firedance, second in the series, was published first, creating some confusion. The Ashlu books were followed by Webs, a psychological thriller with rather large spiders. Dissatisfied with Dhampire, he rewrote it from scratch. The vastly improved version was published as Ancestral Hungers.After moving back to California, Scott created websites for the on-line tie-in for Steven Spielberg's film, AI, including one written in pseudo-Boolean code. The tie-in, AI: Who Killed Evan Chang was the first Alternate Reality Game. It was ranked Entertainment Weekly's number one website for 2002 and one of the New York Times' "Cool Ideas of the Year."Scott's work has been published in England, France, Japan, Italy, Spain, and Finland. He has been a judge for the World Fantasy Awards, and is currently chairman of the judge's panel for the 2011 Philip K. Dick award.After a long hiatus, Scott is currently working on an alternate history novel revolving around ethnopsychiatry, dire leopards, ancient Nubian medicine, traumatic brain injury, behavior-modifying parasites, and Napoleon's attempted conquest of Egypt.AWARDS AND ACCOLADES2002 Entertainment Weekly's number one website (AI: Who Killed Evan Chang?)2002 A New York Times' "Cool Idea of the Year" (AI: Who Killed Evan Chang?)1990 World Fantasy Award Finalist (Varicose Worms)1990 Chosen for The Year's Fantasy and Horror (Varicose Worms)1987 World Fantasy Award Finalist (Nesting Instinct)1987 Chosen for The Year's Best Science Fiction (Sea Change)1985 World Fantasy Award Winner (Still Life with Scorpion)1983 World Fantasy Award Finalist (The Lurking Duck)1982 Critic's Prize, Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival (Litan)1982 Prix Apollo for best science fiction novel published in France (Symbiote's Crown)NOVELSSymbiote's Crown (1978)Nightchild (1983)Drink the Fire from the Flames (1987)Firedance (1985)Webs (1989)Ancestral Hungers (1995)SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS (French)Nouvelle Recette Pour Canard Au Sang (1983)Fringales (1985).Aléas (1997).FILM SCRIPT