Jerry
Oltion (pronounced OL-tee-un) has been a gardener, stone mason,
carpenter, oilfield worker, forester, land surveyor, rock 'n' roll
deejay, printer, proofreader, editor, publisher, computer consultant,
movie extra, corporate secretary, and garbage truck driver. For the last
30 years he has also been a writer, with 15 novels and over 150 stories
published so far. Click here for a bibliography
list.
As of the November, 2011 issue, Jerry had 84 stories published in Analog magazine, making him the most
prolific fiction contributor in the magazine's 80-year history. That put
him ahead of Poul Anderson by ten, a figure that he finds both
exhilarating and humbling at the same time, and ahead of Christopher
Anvil/Harry Crosby by one. Since then he has published several more
stories and an opinion piece in Analog.
He continues to write short fiction and hopes to maintain the
lead despite several prolific newcomers hot on his heels. (Bear in mind
that some of the columnists have had many more appearances in the
magazine, but if we're talking fiction, Jerry has reached the top.)
Jerry and his wife,
Kathy, live in Eugene, Oregon, with their cat, Stormy. They both write
science fiction, and Kathy also works in a medical laboratory. Their
hobbies include electric guitar, electric bass, gardening, and
astronomy. Oh, man, have they gotten into astronomy. Click here to look
at some of their telescopes and astrophotos.
Jerry spent most of 2005 designing and building a new type of telescope called the Trackball. It was featured in the August, 2006 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine. Click the link above or click on the trackball in the photo to learn how it works and how to make one for yourself.
Winter
is telescope building season in Oregon, and the winter of 2010-2011 was
an especially long one, so Jerry made an especially cool telescope: a
double-scale copy of the Edmund Scientific Astroscan. The Astroscan is
one of the world's most popular telescopes, for good reason: it's
incredibly easy to use and it has good optics. Jerry's scaled-up version
expands on that in one important way besides simply increasing its size:
the Big Astroscan also tracks, using the trackball
concept mentioned above.The Big Astroscan was featured in the September, 2011 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine. Click the photo or the link above to go to a page describing how Jerry built it.
Jerry also built a star-testing telescope that was featured in the April, 2009 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine. Click on the photo at left to go to a page describing that scope.
Kathy and Jerry still drive a 1969 Volkswagen
beetle that Kathy has owned since 1975 (longer than she's had Jerry).
Alas, in September of 2006, someone ran into the back of it. The impact
pushed it into the car in front of it, so all four fenders, trunk, and
hood were damaged, along with the bumpers and even some of the engine
parts. The insurance company totalled it, but Jerry & Kathy bought
it back and rebuilt it. Kathy is once again driving it to work, and
watching out for distracted drivers.
Sometimes it feels
like the Universe is out to get us. In May of 2012, while Jerry was on a
trip to Wyoming in our other Volkswagen (our 2001 New Beetle), someone
rear-ended it on the freeway just outside of Pasco, Washington. It
looked pretty bad, and the insurance company wanted to total it, but the
tow truck driver knew a guy who did body work, and the body guy gave us
an estimate that was lower than the insurance payment, so we had him
repair it. His plan was simple: he bought the back end of a car that had
been front-ended, cut the back off ours and welded the other one on.
Only problem was, it took him 8 months (not a typo), during which we
just about pulled our hair (and his) out. The excuses for the delay grew
more and more unbelieavable right up to the last moment. We started
calling it "Zeno's
repair-o-dox" because it seemed like we were always getting closer
but never quite getting there, but eventually after a comical weekend of
increasingly Zeno-like approaches the body guy finally coughed up the
car. And miracle of miracles: despite doing practically all the work at
the very last minute (and I mean painting it at 1:00 in the morning of
the day we picked it up!) the job was very well done. He even repaired
stuff that wasn't damaged in the accident, like a door ding that we got
about three weeks after we bought the car in 2001. So we're insanely
happy to have our car back, good as new. Maybe by next year we'll work
up the courage to actually drive it somewhere. (Just kidding.)
In 2005 Jerry &
Kathy got a kitten they named Stormy because of the lightning bolt on
her forehead and because she seemed like a force of nature when she tore
around through the house. It's hard to believe she's already a
middle-aged cat, but she can still be as rambunctious as ever when she
wants to. 
PARADISE PASSED is Jerry's favorite novel, the one
he has spent the last two decades writing. He poured his heart and soul
into it, blending bizarre aliens, wacky religion, good intentions, and
bad luck into a coming of age story that will leave you thinking about
it long after you're done reading. It's got Jerry's patented sense of
humor, but this time that humor comes with an undercurrent of social
tension that will keep you on the edge of your chair until the very last
page. And if that's not enough enticement, it has a gorgeous cover by
Hugo-winning artist Frank Wu. It's in trade paperback and can be
purchased directly from the publisher, Wheatland Press.
ANYWHERE BUT HERE is a sequel to THE
GETAWAY SPECIAL, but it's really about the world we live in today. The
dust jacket says it best: "In a world dominated by America's heavy hand,
an independent scientist reveals the secret of fast, cheap interstellar
travel, sparking an exodus like none in history. When anyone with a few
hundred dollars and a little ingenuity can build his own spaceship, even
American citizens can't wait to get out from under the United States'
domineering thumb. Trent and Donna Stinson, of Rock Springs, Wyoming,
seal up their pickup for vacuum and go looking for a better life among
the stars, but they soon learn that you can't outrun your problems.
America's belligerent foreign policy is expanding just as fast as the
world's refugees, threatening to destroy humanity's last chance for
peaceful coexistence. When their own government tries to kill them for
exercising the freedoms that people once took for granted, Trent and
Donna reluctantly admit that America must be stopped. But how can
patriotic citizens fight their own country? And how can they succeed
where the rest of the world has failed?"
ANYWHERE BUT HERE won the Endeavor Award for best novel written by a Northwest Author.
THE GETAWAY SPECIAL is pure escapist fiction. It's
about a card-carrying mad scientist (a member of the International
Network of Scientists Against Nuclear Extermination, or INSANE for
short) who invents a hyperdrive engine that will take people anywhere in
the universe they want to go, with parts they can buy at Radio Shack.
Anything that will hold air can become a spaceship, but people soon
learn that space travel is not for the faint of heart. And if the aliens
have their way, it might not be for anyone!
Jerry's latest collection of short stories, TWENTY
QUESTIONS, contains 20 of his previously published stories, some from
obscure magazines and anthologies that you probably didn't see the first
time around. There's a general introduction by the author, as well as
individual notes about each story. Plus there's an added bonus: a
scholarly article that finally answers once and for all the question,
"What's the difference between science fiction and fantasy?" The book is
in trade paperback form and can be purchased directly from the
publisher, Wheatland Press.
Jerry's novella, "Abandon in Place", won the
Nebula Award for best novella of 1997. It's about the ghost of the
Apollo space program, and the astronauts who learn how to harness it.
The story is available in the Nebula Awards 1997 anthology, edited by
Connie Willis. People kept asking what happened to the main characters
after they got back to Earth, so Jerry wrote a novel about them and Tor
published it under the same title: ABANDON IN PLACE. Jerry wanted to
call it IF WISHES WERE ROCKETS, but he was overruled. The novel contains
the novella in its opening section, so you don't need to track that down
if you want to read the novel.
One of Jerry's short stories, "In the Autumn
of the Empire" is now available in the DIAMONDS IN THE SKY
anthology, an online anthology of astronomy-themed science fiction
stories. The anthology concept is very cool: it's a collection of
stories that illustrate basic astronomical concepts in an entertaining
way, so readers can learn something about astronomy while enjoying some
fun stories in the process. "In the Autumn of the Empire" deals with the
seasons, and with some of the misconceptions people have about them. The
anthology is free, so go have a look. (Click on the link above, or the
cover art to the left).
"In the Autumn of the Empire" is also reprinted in the October, 2009 Analog magazine.
Thanks for visiting the Jerry Oltion Page. If
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