Background
Charles Oberndorf was born on December 31, 1959, in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. He is the son of Edward and Caroline Gleason Oberndorf.
Charles Oberndorf
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, United States
Dartmouth College where Charles Oberndorf received a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755, United States
Dartmouth College where Charles Oberndorf received a Bachelor of Arts degree.
(In a future society where the government incarcerates cit...)
In a future society where the government incarcerates citizens into concentration camps in order to stop the spread of the sexually transmitted disease called "hives," Anna Baxter's new relationship with a male prostitute puts her in between the authorities and the terrorists who want to put an end to their iron-fisted control.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/055329248X/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0
1992
(In a bankrupted world where moral purity is the measure o...)
In a bankrupted world where moral purity is the measure of success, Karl knows that the authorities will find out about his one illicit adventure in a tawdry brothel when they strap him into the dream chair.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553561812/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2
1993
(After seven years of war with the Slazan race, a group of...)
After seven years of war with the Slazan race, a group of primitive Slazans is discovered on a remote planet, and chief ethnographer Pauline Dikobe is sent to study the reclusive people in order to learn important strategic information.
https://www.amazon.com/Foragers-Charles-Oberndorf/dp/0553296957
1996
Charles Oberndorf was born on December 31, 1959, in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. He is the son of Edward and Caroline Gleason Oberndorf.
Charles Oberndorf received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology from Dartmouth College in 1982.
Immediately after receiving a degree, Charles Oberndorf worked as an assistant teacher at Dartmouth College in winter and autumn of 1982 and in autumn of 1983. Since 1984 he has taught at University School in Shaker Heights, Ohio as a teacher of English and social studies. Now he is Waggoner Chairholder in Middle School Writing. Oberndorf is also engaged in writing. His first published story was "Mannequins", which appeared in Full Spectrum (an anthology of 1988) edited by Lou Aronica and Shawna McCarthy. He has also authored three novels Sheltered Lives (1992), Testing (1993), and Foragers (1996) and five stories.
His first novel Sheltered Lives dwells on a futuristic America which has been afflicted with a terrible, AIDS-like plague called HIVES. In response to this plague, restrictions have been imposed on the nation. Among other restrictions, all victims of HIVES are isolated from the general population, that is, sent to concentration camps. For the rest of the population, sexual activity becomes a highly regimented system of government-regulated prostitution. The hero of the novel is one of these prostitutes, a male sex worker named Rod Lawrence. As the novel unfolds, Rod and his current client, a woman named Anna with connections to important officials, become enmeshed in a deadly tussle between terrorists and the authorities.
Oberndorf’s second book Testing also explores a futuristic, post-disaster society. Karl Oldham, the seventeen-year-old protagonist of this novel, lives in a society that has survived a nearly apocalyptic economic crash. In order to best filter those students destined for greatness, all high-school graduates must take a rite-of-passage session in the dream chair, a device that simulates reality. Students in the dream chair are presented with morally demanding situations and are judged by their reactions. During the week leading up to his dream chair appointment, Karl shows little interest in practicing for his upcoming session. Karl is far more interested in getting intimate with his girlfriend and causing mischief with his buddies. As the week draws on and the looming presence of the upcoming session grows more ominous, Karl sees more and more similarities between his life and that of the hero of Dostoevski’s famous Crime and Punishment. Clearly, ominous change looms ahead.
The third book Foragers is set more expansively in a Space Opera environment. An anthropologist is assigned to study an Alien race at which humanity is at war, and may have found a solution to the conflict in his subjects' need for solitude. Oberndorf's short stories have appeared in Full Spectrum, Asimov's SF, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He wrote book reviews for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Volunteer: the Journal of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, and The New York Review of Science Fiction.
(In a future society where the government incarcerates cit...)
1992(After seven years of war with the Slazan race, a group of...)
1996(In a bankrupted world where moral purity is the measure o...)
1993
Quotations:
"I find science fiction important because it can take on big issues without coming off as pretentious the way mundane fiction can."
"New ideas come from collisions of random ideas that start to feel like stories. I worry less about generating ideas for new stories than generating ideas within a story so that it feels like a story and not an organized list of incidents."
"More than ever before, I spend time thinking about how to provide surprises for the reader, how to make a story move along, all while providing a narrative that corresponds to the way people feel, think, and react to circumstances."
Charles Oberndorf is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
Charles Oberndorf married April Elaine Stewart in 1987. The marriage produced a son. They also have a stepson and stepdaughter.
