David Bischoff


David F. Bischoff was an American science fiction and television writer.

General background

Born in Washington D.C., Bischoff wrote science fiction books, short stories, and scripts for television. Though he began writing in the early 1970s, and had over 80 books published, Bischoff was best known for novelizations of popular movies and TV series including Aliens, ,, and WarGames.

Early career

Bischoff began writing science fiction, and reviews of the genre while studying at the University of Maryland. His first publications were at Thrust, a fanzine offering science fiction commentary and criticism. The editor, Doug Fratz, later turned Thrust into a trade magazine, where Bischoff was a regular contributor.
His first novel, The Seeker was published in 1976, and in 1978 Bischoff coauthored "Tin Woodman", a short story nominated for a Nebula Award in that year, and later adapted into both a novel and TV episode for .

Movies and television

Bischoff worked on various television series such as ', where he coauthored the episodes "Tin Man |Tin Man" and "First Contact |First Contact" . He also wrote the Star Trek tie-in novel Grounded, which spent time on the bestseller list.
Other TV work included Dinosaucers produced by DIC Entertainment. His interest in dinosaurs led him to write the second of 24 books in the Time Machine series, Search for Dinosaurs, which is actually about finding Archaeopteryx, the first bird.
In addition to some seventy-five original novels, Bischoff wrote tie-in novels for well-known movies and TV series such as Aliens, Alien Versus Predator, Farscape, ', Space Precinct, SeaQuest DSV, and Jonny Quest. He also wrote show-business related nonfiction under a variety of pen names.
In 2000, the Washington Post called him the "greatest living wrestling writer" for his work as "Winchell Dredge" at Wild Rampage Wrestling magazine.

Teaching

Bischoff taught creative writing at Seton Hill University, Pennsylvania.

Selected bibliography

Novels

Bischoff died on March 19, 2018. The cause was complications from liver disease, said his former wife, Martha Bayless.