Allen Stroud

Allen Stroud is a university lecturer, researcher and Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer from Bedfordshire, England. He the is Chair of the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA).

In 2022-2023, Stroud was seconded from the university to be Principal Investigator on the Creative Futures Phase 1 project. This was a partnership between the Defence Science and Technology Labroratory (DSTL) and Coventry University. This involves discussions between prominent science fiction writers and Ministry of Defence experts. looking at the challenges the United Kingdom will face in the next century.  

Stroud is also a member of the Resilience Beyond Observed Capabilities (RBOC) Network and a regular contributor to Technology & Innovation Executive Roundtable (TIER) discussions, organised by WHITESPACE.

Stroud is also the author of The Historical Dictionary of Fantasy Literature - Second Edition, published by Rowman and Littlefield in June 2023.

Stroud has written an assortment of science fiction and fantasy works. His Fractal Series: Fearless (2020), Resilient (2022) and Europa (2023) is an ongoing story of humanity in the 22nd century. A prominent theme in his writing is the representation of disabled characters in science fiction. An album of music is also being published as part of the project. 

Previously, Stroud worked on the computer games Baldur's Gate 3, published by Larian Studios, Phoenix Point, published by Snapshot Games, Chaos Reborn, published by Snapshot Games and Elite: Dangerous published by Frontier Developments.

In 2017, Allen won a short story competition to appear in the Clarke Award anthology with Clarke Award winners and nominees. That anthology, 2001: An Anthology in Words was published in June 2018, by Newcon Press.

Allen writes reviews for The British Fantasy Society, SFBook.com and Concatenation.org and is the editor of the British Fantasy Society Journal. He was the Chair of Fantasycon for 2017 and 2018.

Allen's personal website is here - http://www.allenstroud.com.

Allen's research interests focus around Fantasy, Science Fiction and Horror. His applied research looks at using world development techniques used by writers in other contexts, constructing different background tools to assist forecasting and futures research. He has a particular focus in looking at mythology and myth construction as well as the referential qualities of each genre.

Allen is a practice based researcher, applying critical writing to his creative outputs.