Alan Dean Foster is a prolific science fiction and fantasy author. He is credited with writing the story for what became Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Born in New York City, Foster went to the University of California, Los Angeles. He currently lives in Prescott, Arizona with his wife.

As a novelist, Foster wrote Ballantine Books’ line of Star Trek: The Animated Series novelizations, titled the Star Trek Logs, and a new, serialized essay on the writing of those Logs, which was included with the five 2006 trade paperback reprint omnibuses. He also wrote a number of the Star Trek stories released by Peter Pan Records. In 2009, Foster wrote the novelization for J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek. Foster also wrote an original novel based on the movie, Refugees, which is currently “on hold” following executive decisions at Pocket. He also wrote the novelization of the sequel Star Trek Into Darkness. Foster had the chance to watch the films before writing their novelizations, which according to Greg Cox is unheard of in the industry.

Foster’s best known works are his series of science fiction novels set in the Humanx Commonwealth, an interstellar union of species similar to the United Federation of Planets. He is also known for his novels featuring his two most popular characters, a young empath named Flinx and his companion, Pip. Foster’s most popular fantasy books are those of the Spellsinger series.

In addition, Foster is known for writing novelizations of many feature film screenplays. Among these is the novelization for the 2007 film Transformers and the sequel Revenge of the Fallen, which, like Star Trek, were based on screenplays by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. Other film scripts he has novelized include Star Wars: Episodes IV – A New Hope and VII – The Force Awakens, the first three Alien films, John Carpenter’s The Thing, The Last Starfighter, Alien Nation, The Chronicles of Riddick, and Terminator: Salvation.