(Astronomer) Alan Smale

Alan Smale writes alternate history, historical fantasy, and hard SF. His novella of a Roman invasion of ancient America, “A Clash of Eagles”, won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History, and his novels set in the same universe, Clash of Eagles, Eagle in Exile, and Eagle and Empire (2015-2017) are available from Del Rey in the US and Titan Books in the UK and Europe. His “Roman baseball” collaboration with Rick Wilber, The Wandering Warriors, came out from WordFire Press in 2020, and Hot Moon, his alternate-Apollo “technothriller with heart”, set entirely on and around the Moon, was launched by CAEZIK SF & Fantasy in 2022, with sequel Radiant Sky following in 2024 and the grand finale, Burning Night, in November 2025. Alan has sold over 50 stories to Asimov’s, Sunday Morning Transport, and other magazines and anthologies, and his short story “Gunpowder Treason” earned him a second Sidewise Award in 2022. His non-fiction essays have appeared in Lightspeed, Journey Planet, and Galaxy’s Edge. Alan grew up in Yorkshire, England, and earned degrees in Physics and Astrophysics from Oxford University. Until recently he performed astronomical research into Galactic neutron star and black hole binary systems at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and served as the Director of one of NASA’s big-three astrophysical data archives.