James H. Schmitz was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1911 of American parents. He spent the years of the First World War in the United States, then went back to Germany to complete his schooling. Aside from several trips to the United States, he lived in Germany until 1938, returning to America with the outbreak of World War II. He sold his first story, "Greenface," to the now-legendary fantasy magazine Unknown Worlds, shortly before Pearl Harbor, but by the time it was published, he was flying with an Army Air Corps group as an aerial photographer in the Southern Pacific Theater. In 1949, he began publishing his "Agent of Vega" series in the leading SF magazine, Astounding (later renamed Analog), and was one of that magazine's most popular contributors over the next three decades, introducing the memorable heroines Telzey Amberdon and Trigger Argee, leading protagonists in his massive "Federation of the Hub" series. He died in 1981.
