Steve Perry (born August 31, 1947) is an American television writer and science fiction author.
Biography
Perry is a native of the Deep South. His residences have included Louisiana, California, Washington, and Oregon. Prior to working full-time as a freelance writer, he worked as a swimming instructor, lifeguard, assembler of toys, a clerk in a hotel gift shop and car rental agency, aluminum salesman, martial art instructor, private detective, and nurse. His wife is Dianne Waller, a Port of Portland executive. They have two children and five grandsons.[1] One of their children is science fiction author S. D. Perry.
He is a practitioner of the martial art Silat, which inspired him to create the fictional martial arts Sumito and Teräs Käsi, both of which are essentially fictionalized versions of Silat.
Literary career
Perry has written over fifty novels and numerous short stories, which have appeared in various magazines and anthologies. Perry is perhaps best known for the Matador series. He has written books in the Star Wars, Alien and Conan universes. He was a collaborator on all of the Tom Clancy's Net Force series, seven of which have appeared on the New York Times Bestseller list. Two of his novelizations, Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire and Men in Black have also been bestsellers. Other writing credits include articles, reviews, and essays, animated teleplays, and some unproduced movie scripts. One of his scripts for Batman: The Animated Series was an Emmy Award nominee for Outstanding Writing.[1]
Thong the Barbarian Meets the Cycle Sluts of Saturn (1998) with J. Michael Reaves
Cutter's Wars
The Ramal Extraction (2012)
The Vastalimi Gambit (2013)
The Tejano Conflict (2014)
The Matador series
The Matador series chronicles the birth, evolution, victory, and aftermath of a rebellion that overthrows a corrupt and declining interstellar government ("The Confederation") based on Earth. The Matador series features a fictional martial art known as "Sumito" or "The 97 Steps". Many of the non-English words and place names are actually in the Esperanto language.
The rebellion proper begins in The Man Who Never Missed, in which Emile Khadaji deserts from the Confederation military after a particularly bloody battle and religious experience, eventually joining up with a bartending martial artist monk named Pen, who teaches Khadaji the art used by his order, Sumito ("The 97 steps"), before setting him on his own path. Khadaji learns economics and politics and military science and eventually decides he has to overthrow the Confederation. This he does by setting up a bar on a planet named Greaves, and while luring soldiers in by day, hunts and paralyzes them by night. Over many months, he paralyzes 2,388 of the 10,000 troops on the planet, only missing with a handful of shots, which he carefully conceals. Eventually, as the first paralyzed soldier awakens, he attacks the commander, is trapped in his bar, and apparently killed.
Afterward, the Confederation military realize that he apparently knocked out almost 2,400 soldiers without missing a single time, a record which becomes a legend, striking fear into the Confederation military ranks.
Juete who appears here is one of the major characters in The Omega Cage.
Kamus first appeared in two short stories by J. Michael Reaves in Volume 8 of the "Weird Heroes" series from Pyramid Books. One of the stories is mentioned here.
