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Karen Traviss is a science fiction author and full-time novelist from Wiltshire, England. Originally from the Portsmouth area, Traviss worked as both a journalist and defence correspondent before turning her attention to writing fiction. She also served in both the Territorial Army and the Royal Naval Auxiliary Service. Traviss is a graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy workshop. Her first published novel, City of Pearl (2004) centered around the clash of several distinct alien civilizations, several hundred years in the future. She has since written five sequels to City of Pearl: Crossing the Line (2004), The World Before (2005), Matriarch (2006), Ally (2007), and Judge (2008).

In addition to creating her own fictional setting for City of Pearl, Traviss has written numerous novels using existing intellectual property...particularly in the Star Wars universe. Three of those Star Wars novels have been bestsellers: Hard Contact (2004), Triple Zero (2006) and Bloodlines. Hard Contact and Triple Zero begin the Republic Commando Series, which Traviss continued to write (True Colors is the third volume and Order 66 (2008) is the fourth). Her newest addition to the series, 501st, was released in October of 2009. In addition to the Republic Commando Series, Traviss was one of three authors retained by Lucasfilm and Del Rey to pen a nine novel series called Legacy of the Force (the other two authors were Aaron Allston and Troy Denning). Her three contributions to the series are: Bloodlines (2006), Sacrifice (2007) and Revelation (2008). Thematically, her work within the Star Wars universe has frequently centered on Mandalorians and their culture. In particular, her Republic Commando novels have explored themes of identity with regards to clone troopers, their Mandalorian heritage, and their interaction with Jedi leadership. Unfortunately, in (2009), much of Traviss' works in reference to the Mandalorians and their heritage was retconned in a series called The Clone Wars. The exact reason for the change in continuity remains unknown to this date, but it prompted the author to cancel a further three novels which were planned to release in late (2009), and early to mid (2010). Some speculation as to the change has been offered, with many sources pointing to a rant by the author on her personal blog where she compared Star Wars fans to terrorists, coining the term "Talifan", a direct take off of Taliban. Shortly after this statement, Traviss went on to deny ever making it, and further deleted the entire contents of her Star Wars.com blog. The controversy dealing with her statements and sudden withdrawal from the community has left many former Star Wars fans to boycott all works produced solely or collaborated with on her part.

In addition to Star Wars novels, Traviss also wrote a Gears of War prequel novel, Aspho Fields which was released on October 28, 2008. She was inspired to do so after watching a trailer for the game. She also wrote a sequel, Gears of War: Jacinto's Remnant, which was released on July 28, 2009. On April 13th, 2010 it was made official that Traviss had been signed as the lead writer for Epic Games' upcoming sequel, Gears of War 3.

On July 21, 2010, Traviss announced on her blog that she had signed a multi-book deal to write novels set in the Halo universe. The first book will be set after the events of Ghosts of Onyx, though it will not be a continuation of that story line. Explaining why she had agreed to write in the Halo universe, Traviss said that "there's an awkward and upsetting moral dilemma at the heart of the story, and if there's something I can't resist more than money, it's exploring moral dilemmas."

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Karen Traviss", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0