Eric Nylund is the author of many novels, including the New York Times bestselling works Halo: The Fall of Reach, Halo: First Strike, and Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, and the World Fantasy nominated Dry Water. As a writer for Microsoft Game Studios, Nylund helped develop such game franchises as Halo and Gears of War. He has also helped shape the intellectual property for some of the world’s best videogame developers, including Bioware and Epic Games, and also worked with Amazon’s game studios. Nylund lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife, award-winning science fiction/fantasy writer Syne Mitchell, and their son.

William C. Dietz (1945–2026) was the New York Times bestselling author of more than sixty novels, including Halo: The Flood, StarCraft: Heaven’s Devils, and the Legion of the Damned series. He grew up in the Seattle area, served as a medic with the Navy and the Marines, and graduated from the University of Washington. Dietz worked as a surgical technician, a news writer, a college instructor, a television producer, and a director of public relations for an international telephone company prior to embarking on a full-time writing career.