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Stephen Euin Cobb (born February 3, 1955) is a U.S. author,^[1] magazine writer,^[2] interviewer and host of the award-winning podcast The Future and You.^[3] A contributing editor for Space and Time Magazine,^[4] and a former contributing editor for Robot Magazine; he writes regularly for H+ Magazine, Grim Couture Magazine, Digit Magazine and Port Iris magazine; and for three years was a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. Cobb is also a game designer, artist, essayist, futurist, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of the Lifeboat Foundation.^[5]

  Magazine Writing (non-fiction)

Most of Cobb's articles and columns in magazines 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: 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

(These examples are all from Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. None have been included from Robot Magazine, Space and Time Magazine, Grim Couture Magazine, Port Iris Magazine, H+ Magazine or Digit Magazine.)

  Novels and Short Stories

Bones Burnt Black (2004) is his most widely read novel. 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.

Skinbrain (Cerebrodermus Fantastica) (2011) is his most futuristic book. It contains the most deviations from our current technology level.

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.)

  Other media

Since 2005, Cobb has been the host of The Future and You, a weekly talk-show style podcast; for which he has interviewed over 300 authors, futurists, scientists and celebrities ^[6] 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 Americans 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 pastels. 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.

  Boc Cryotank

Boc Cryotank is the main avatar (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.

  Miscellaneous

He has invented a number of games, 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 ^[7] 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.

  References

1. ^ "Washington Science Fiction Association's book review of Bones Burnt Black". http://www.wsfa.org/journal/j04/b/index.htm#bbb. 
2. ^ "Bibliography of his magazine articles and essays (detailed but incomplete)". http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Stephen%20Euin%20Cobb. 
3. ^ "The Future And You". http://www.thefutureandyou.com/. 
4. ^ "Space and Time Magazine, List of contributing writers". http://spaceandtimemagazine.com/wp/links. 
5. ^ "Bio as member of the Advisory Board for the Lifeboat Foundation". http://www.lifeboat.com/ex/bios.stephen.euin.cobb. 
6. ^ "Review of interview with actress Robin Curtis of Star Trek III and IV". http://trekweb.com/stories.php?aid=43fc003c031f0. 
7. ^ "International Abstract Games Organization". http://abstractgamers.org/iwt.htm. 

  External links

• Stephen Euin Cobb at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Stephen Euin Cobb official website Photos of him on TV, interviewing people, doing book signings and speaking at conventions.
• Boc Cryotank's photos on Flickr (Weddings, NASA events, lectures and other gatherings)