Stephen Euin Cobb
Encyclopedia
Stephen Euin Cobb is a U.S.
author
, magazine writer, interviewer and host of the award-winning podcast The Future and You
. He's also a columnist
and contributing editor
for Jim Baen's Universe
Magazine; a contributing editor
for Robot Magazine
; and has written for Space and Time Magazine, H+ Magazine, Grim Couture Magazine, Digit Magazine and Port Iris magazine. Cobb is also a game designer, artist, essayist, futurist, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of the Lifeboat Foundation.
s center on technology and/or science. His essay-style articles also center on technology and science but often speculate about how the trends visible today will alter the future. He has also done celebrity interviews.
Articles about the future include:
Fifteen Ways Cheap Solar Cells are going to Change the World,
What I've Learned Interviewing Futurists
and Your Medical Care in the Coming Three Decades.
Science speculation articles include:
My Father's Watch,
The Essay with No Title (until its end),
The Perpetual Electron
and The Universal Diagram (published in the February 2007 episode of Jim Baen's Universe Magazine, in which he proposed a method of charting, in three dimensions, all the celestial objects in the universe to make their relationships more obvious. This can be considered vaguely analogous to the two dimensional Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of stars.)
Transhumanist articles include:
Five Famous Authors do Public Appearances in Second Life,
Earth's Next Schism,
The Coming Popularity and Power of Luddism
and Transhumanism's Universal Success is Unavoidable
(Examples from Robot Magazine, Space and Time Magazine and Digit Magazine can't be linked to since those magazines are printed on paper.)
. It was serialized as an audio book in his podcast during the show's first two years (from December 2005 to November 2007). It is an action/adventure, murder/mystery
involving a series of murders aboard a large passenger spacecraft
which has been sabotaged by the killer.
Plague at Redhook (1999), was his first published novel. Its story involved a nanotechnology
so highly advanced that it resembled magic
and resulted in human immortality
.
He also contributed a short story called The Errand Boy to the anthology Writers for Relief. (All the profits of this anthology are being donated to the victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.)
As a novelist, he specializes in hard science fiction
(fiction with a high degree of scientific accuracy). All of his novels occur within the same fictional universe
which has been nicknamed "Naked Space" in honor of a fictional cosmological
theory put forth by a character in one of his novels. (His short story The Errand Boy is a timetravel story, and so does not seem to fit within his Naked Space universe.)
, a weekly talk-show style podcast
; for which he has interviewed over 300 hundred authors, futurists, scientists and celebrities as to the trends they see changing the world, and our lives, in both the near and distant future.
in South Carolina
. His mother, Jewel Caroline Cobb (maiden name: Hoover), served one term as a member of the Tribal Counsel. (His mother's sister Emaline Barr has also served one term.) For the tribe to achieve state recognition, complete genealogical records of several tribal members had to be produced and certified as accurate; his mother was one of this core group. Records authenticate that her ancestry is no less than 1/4 Native American
(uncertified records indicate that she is probably 1/2 Native American). Because of this, Stephen Euin Cobb is somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 Native American.
His hobbies include: astronomy
(he has a 10.1 inch Dobsonian style Newtonian telescope
), handwriting analysis, and drawing in pencil
, charcoal
and pastel
s. He also collects fossils, artwork
and autographed books.
Stephen Euin Cobb was born in Orangeburg, South Carolina
; spent his childhood in Forest Park
, Illinois
(a suburb of Chicago
); and now lives in South Carolina
.
(online personality) of Stephen Euin Cobb in the online world Second Life
.
Within that virtual world he helps organize and promote events dealing with science fact, fiction and the future. Examples include his arranging David Brin
's personal appearance for the Yuri's Night
2008 celebrations within Second Life which took place on April 12, 2008; and his arranging the personal appearance made by Robert J. Sawyer
for an open forum lecture in the Grand Hall of the Central Nexus Building, followed immediately by a smaller discussion with the Extropia Book Club concerning Robert J. Sawyer's latest novel Rollback which was held on April 6, 2008; and his arranging the personal appearances made by Catherine Asaro
on August 9, 2008, and by Kim Stanley Robinson
on January 17, 2009.
He is also a noted photographer and photojournalist, and maintains office space on the eighth floor of the Central Nexus Building in Extropia Core.
s, the most famous being Death Stacks
, for which there is an annual tournament
in Charlotte
, North Carolina
. The Death Stacks tournament has been added to the IAGO World Tour by the International Abstract Games Organization.
He is the inventor of the Ignorance Index, an empirical rating system for talk shows on radio and television.
He is a founding member of The Order of Cosmic Engineers.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, magazine writer, interviewer and host of the award-winning podcast The Future and You
The Future And You
The Future and You is a podcast hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb and teamed with Jim Baen's Universe Magazine...
. He's also a columnist
Columnist
A columnist is a journalist who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs....
and contributing editor
Contributing editor
A contributing editor is a magazine job title that varies in responsibilities. Most often, a contributing editor is a freelancer who has proven ability and readership draw. The contributing editor regularly contributes articles to the publication but does not actually edit articles, and the title...
for Jim Baen's Universe
Jim Baen's Universe
Jim Baen's Universe was a bimonthly online fantasy and science fiction magazine created by Jim Baen . It is recognized by the SFWA as a Qualifying Short Fiction Venue. JBU began soliciting materials in January 2006 and launched in June 2006...
Magazine; a contributing editor
Contributing editor
A contributing editor is a magazine job title that varies in responsibilities. Most often, a contributing editor is a freelancer who has proven ability and readership draw. The contributing editor regularly contributes articles to the publication but does not actually edit articles, and the title...
for Robot Magazine
Robot Magazine
Robot Magazine is an American bi-monthly robotics publication produced by the Maplegate Media Group. The first issue appeared in November 2003...
; and has written for Space and Time Magazine, H+ Magazine, Grim Couture Magazine, Digit Magazine and Port Iris magazine. Cobb is also a game designer, artist, essayist, futurist, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of the Lifeboat Foundation.
Magazine Writing (non-fiction)
Most of Cobb's articles and columns in magazineMagazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
s center on technology and/or science. His essay-style articles also center on technology and science but often speculate about how the trends visible today will alter the future. He has also done celebrity interviews.
Articles about the future include:
Fifteen Ways Cheap Solar Cells are going to Change the World,
What I've Learned Interviewing Futurists
and Your Medical Care in the Coming Three Decades.
Science speculation articles include:
My Father's Watch,
The Essay with No Title (until its end),
The Perpetual Electron
and The Universal Diagram (published in the February 2007 episode of Jim Baen's Universe Magazine, in which he proposed a method of charting, in three dimensions, all the celestial objects in the universe to make their relationships more obvious. This can be considered vaguely analogous to the two dimensional Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of stars.)
Transhumanist articles include:
Five Famous Authors do Public Appearances in Second Life,
Earth's Next Schism,
The Coming Popularity and Power of Luddism
and Transhumanism's Universal Success is Unavoidable
(Examples from Robot Magazine, Space and Time Magazine and Digit Magazine can't be linked to since those magazines are printed on paper.)
Novels and Short Stories
Bones Burnt Black (2004) is his most widely read novelNovel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
. It was serialized as an audio book in his podcast during the show's first two years (from December 2005 to November 2007). It is an action/adventure, murder/mystery
Mystery fiction
Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term.1.It is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction— in other words a novel or short story in which a detective investigates and solves a crime mystery. Sometimes mystery books are nonfiction...
involving a series of murders aboard a large passenger spacecraft
Spacecraft
A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
which has been sabotaged by the killer.
Plague at Redhook (1999), was his first published novel. Its story involved a nanotechnology
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
so highly advanced that it resembled magic
Magic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
and resulted in human immortality
Immortality
Immortality is the ability to live forever. It is unknown whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering...
.
He also contributed a short story called The Errand Boy to the anthology Writers for Relief. (All the profits of this anthology are being donated to the victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.)
As a novelist, he specializes in hard science fiction
Hard science fiction
Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Islands of Space in Astounding Science...
(fiction with a high degree of scientific accuracy). All of his novels occur within the same fictional universe
Fictional universe
A fictional universe is a self-consistent fictional setting with elements that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed or fictional realm ....
which has been nicknamed "Naked Space" in honor of a fictional cosmological
Physical cosmology
Physical cosmology, as a branch of astronomy, is the study of the largest-scale structures and dynamics of the universe and is concerned with fundamental questions about its formation and evolution. For most of human history, it was a branch of metaphysics and religion...
theory put forth by a character in one of his novels. (His short story The Errand Boy is a timetravel story, and so does not seem to fit within his Naked Space universe.)
Other media
Since 2005, Cobb has been the host of The Future and YouThe Future And You
The Future and You is a podcast hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb and teamed with Jim Baen's Universe Magazine...
, a weekly talk-show style podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
; for which he has interviewed over 300 hundred authors, futurists, scientists and celebrities as to the trends they see changing the world, and our lives, in both the near and distant future.
Personal life
He is a member of the Beaver Creek Tribe of Native AmericansBeaver Creek Indians
The Beaver Creek Indians are a unrecognized tribe located in South Carolina which achieved state recognition on January 27, 2006. It is seeking federal recognition. The tribe was formed as a non-profit organization in 1998....
in South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
. His mother, Jewel Caroline Cobb (maiden name: Hoover), served one term as a member of the Tribal Counsel. (His mother's sister Emaline Barr has also served one term.) For the tribe to achieve state recognition, complete genealogical records of several tribal members had to be produced and certified as accurate; his mother was one of this core group. Records authenticate that her ancestry is no less than 1/4 Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
(uncertified records indicate that she is probably 1/2 Native American). Because of this, Stephen Euin Cobb is somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 Native American.
His hobbies include: astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
(he has a 10.1 inch Dobsonian style Newtonian telescope
Newtonian telescope
The Newtonian telescope is a type of reflecting telescope invented by the British scientist Sir Isaac Newton , using a concave primary mirror and a flat diagonal secondary mirror. Newton’s first reflecting telescope was completed in 1668 and is the earliest known functional reflecting telescope...
), handwriting analysis, and drawing in pencil
Pencil
A pencil is a writing implement or art medium usually constructed of a narrow, solid pigment core inside a protective casing. The case prevents the core from breaking, and also from marking the user’s hand during use....
, charcoal
Charcoal
Charcoal is the dark grey residue consisting of carbon, and any remaining ash, obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents from animal and vegetation substances. Charcoal is usually produced by slow pyrolysis, the heating of wood or other substances in the absence of oxygen...
and pastel
Pastel
Pastel is an art medium in the form of a stick, consisting of pure powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are the same as those used to produce all colored art media, including oil paints; the binder is of a neutral hue and low saturation....
s. He also collects fossils, artwork
Visual arts
The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
and autographed books.
Stephen Euin Cobb was born in Orangeburg, South Carolina
Orangeburg, South Carolina
Orangeburg, also known as "The Garden City," is the principal city in and the county seat of Orangeburg County, South Carolina, United States. The city is also the fifth oldest city in the state of South Carolina. The city population was 12,765 at the 2000 census, within a Greater Orangeburg...
; spent his childhood in Forest Park
Forest Park, Illinois
Forest Park is a village in Cook County, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago in the United States. The population was 15,688 at the 2000 census...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
(a suburb of Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
); and now lives in South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...
.
Boc Cryotank
Boc Cryotank is the main avatarAvatar (virtual reality)
In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user's alter ego or character. It may take either a three-dimensional form, as in games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums and other online communities. It can also refer to a text...
(online personality) of Stephen Euin Cobb in the online world Second Life
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...
.
Within that virtual world he helps organize and promote events dealing with science fact, fiction and the future. Examples include his arranging David Brin
David Brin
Glen David Brin, Ph.D. is an American scientist and award-winning author of science fiction. He has received the Hugo, Locus, Campbell and Nebula Awards.-Biography:...
's personal appearance for the Yuri's Night
Yuri's Night
Yuri's Night is an international celebration held on April 12 every year to commemorate space exploration milestones. The event is named for the first human to launch into space, Yuri Gagarin, who flew the Vostok 1 spaceship on April 12, 1961. In 2004, people celebrated Yuri's Night in 34...
2008 celebrations within Second Life which took place on April 12, 2008; and his arranging the personal appearance made by Robert J. Sawyer
Robert J. Sawyer
Robert James Sawyer is a Canadian science fiction writer. He has had 20 novels published, and his short fiction has appeared in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Amazing Stories, On Spec, Nature, and many anthologies. Sawyer has won over forty awards for his fiction, including the Nebula Award ,...
for an open forum lecture in the Grand Hall of the Central Nexus Building, followed immediately by a smaller discussion with the Extropia Book Club concerning Robert J. Sawyer's latest novel Rollback which was held on April 6, 2008; and his arranging the personal appearances made by Catherine Asaro
Catherine Asaro
Catherine Asaro is an American science fiction and fantasy author. She is best known for her books about the Ruby Dynasty, called the Saga of the Skolian Empire.- Biography :...
on August 9, 2008, and by Kim Stanley Robinson
Kim Stanley Robinson
Kim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer known for his award-winning Mars trilogy. His work delves into ecological and sociological themes regularly, and many of his novels appear to be the direct result of his own scientific fascinations, such as the fifteen years of research...
on January 17, 2009.
He is also a noted photographer and photojournalist, and maintains office space on the eighth floor of the Central Nexus Building in Extropia Core.
Miscellaneous
He has invented a number of gameGame
A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...
s, the most famous being Death Stacks
Death Stacks
Death Stacks is an abstract strategy board game for two players invented by Stephen Euin Cobb. Abstract strategy games have no random elements or hidden information...
, for which there is an annual tournament
Tournament
A tournament is a competition involving a relatively large number of competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:...
in Charlotte
CHARLOTTE
- CHARLOTTE :CHARLOTTE is an American blues-based hard rock band that formed in Los Angeles, California in 1986. Currently, they are signed to indie label, Eonian Records, under which they released their debut cd, Medusa Groove, in 2010. Notable Charlotte songs include 'Siren', 'Little Devils',...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
. The Death Stacks tournament has been added to the IAGO World Tour by the International Abstract Games Organization.
He is the inventor of the Ignorance Index, an empirical rating system for talk shows on radio and television.
He is a founding member of The Order of Cosmic Engineers.
External links
- Stephen Euin Cobb official website Photos of him on TV, interviewing people, doing book signings and speaking at conventions.
- Stephen's bio as a staff member at Jim Baen's Universe Magazine
- Boc Cryotank's photos on Flickr (Weddings, NASA events, lectures and other gatherings)