About Chris Hepler and Jennifer Brandes

    Chris Hepler and Jennifer Brandes began their professional careers in 1996, during their junior year at the Johns Hopkins University. Already the winners of several writing awards, including the Scholastic Writing Award for Short Fiction, the Isaac Asimov Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy, and the Lyric Poetry Award, they were hired to write the "KSAF" and "Human Nation" segments of the Threats supplement for FASA Corporation's Shadowrun.

    For the next year, they were regular contributors to FASA's Shadowrun and Earthdawn game lines, including the popular Arcane Mysteries of Barsaive, Shadowrun Companion, and Portfolio of a Dragon: Dunkelzahn's Secrets. Their adventures include "Excelsior," a cinematic counter-terrorist action in the Empire State Building, "King of the Mountain," which takes Special Forces characters to an underground magical militia base in Alaska, and "Wild Kingdom," which takes characters across the Atlantic and to a high-tech slaving operation hidden in the Gold Coast jungles. These can be found in Shadows of the Underworld, Missions, and Predator and Prey, respectively.

    Their Cyberpirates was the first Shadowrun sourcebook to detail the 2058 world outside of Europe and North America, and The Ork Nation of Cara Fahd marked the last Earthdawn release with the story of the orks' attempt to retake the homeland they had  lost a thousand years ago.

    Soon the pair turned their attentions to West End Games, whose Paranoia line they had helped revive a year earlier with Creatures of the Nightcycle. Nightcycle, a spoof of White Wolf's Vampire: The Masquerade, reached the Comic Retailer's Best-Seller List, and Hepler and Brandes were hired to write the game's third edition. That book, as well as Welcome to BUG Sector, an adventure parodying Shadowrun, Men in Black, and all things science fiction, has been unavoidably delayed pending West End's reorganization and merger with Yeti, a French gaming company.

    Hepler and Brandes were frequent contributors to the now-defunct SHADIS Magazine. Some of their articles can be seen elsewhere on this site. In 1999, their association with Alderac Entertainment Group led to their writing Bearers of Jade: The Second Book of the Shadowlands, for AEG's Legend of the Five Rings. A joy to write, Bearers of Jade has also proved popular with players and critics. The adventure "Mirror, Mirror," elsewhere on this site, is a free sample of how to use its monsters, horror atmosphere and characters to their best advantage.

    Currently, Hepler and Brandes make their home in Los Angeles, writing for television, film, and the infrequent magazine article such as in the October 1999 issue of Reptiles. While the majority of their efforts have naturally gone toward science fiction and fantasy, they have also branched out into comedy, drama, and animation. In their free time, they study wing chun kung fu, hatha yoga, and herpetoculture.

REVIEWS
http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_2536.html
http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_0196.html
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1555603017/104-2538800-3257205
http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/sample.cgi?1231

There are others, but these are the most coherently worded.