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[[File:Thomas K. Carpenter.jpg|thumb|Thomas K. Carpenter]]'''Thomas K. Carpenter''' is a writer who wrote the ''[[Star Citizen]]'' short story ''[[:Category:The First Run|The First Run]]'' for [[Cloud Imperium Games Ltd.|Cloud Imperium Games]].<ref>"[https://x.com/thomaskcarpente/status/677215231051997184 Star Citizen soon to break $100M http://buff.ly/1Z6XMMS I'm excited and not just bc I write for them]", @thomaskcarpente, Twitter, Dec 16, 2015</ref><ref>"[https://x.com/thomaskcarpente/status/457271793582350336 The first episode of my story, The First Run, is up on the Star Citizen Dispatch. The story will be unfolding...] ", @thomaskcarpente, Twitter, Apr 18, 2014</ref><ref>{{Cite RSI|url=https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/serialized-fiction/13820-The-First-Run-Episode-One|text=The First Run: Episode One|accessdate=2014-04-18}}</ref>

He took his first job after graduation at an iron foundry.<ref name=":0">[https://thomaskcarpenter.com/about-the-author/ About the Author], thomaskcarpenter.com</ref>

He went to work at a Toyota plant and·in the late 90 he finished his first book.·The early 2000s were a blur of work and raising children with no time for writing. ·It wasn’t until after Tom completed an MBA that his wife encouraged him to spend the time he had used for studying to write. ·He wrote several books those first few years.<ref name=":0" />

After shopping the books around unsuccessfully, he decided to try self-publishing and put out his first book, ''The Digital Sea'', in 2010. ·In the next 10 years he continued to get hundreds of rejections from traditional publishing for both books and short stories. ·But he also had multiple stories published in various magazines such as Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, as well as self-published over 30 books.<ref name=":0" />

In 2021, after 25 years of working for Toyota and writing virtually every evening and weekend, Tom was finally able to quit the corporate job and focus solely on writing.<ref name=":0" />

He writes YA dystopia, post-cyberpunk sci-fi, steampunk, dark fantasy, and alternate reality historical mystery.<ref name=":0" /> He wrote among others the ''Hundred Halls'' series, the ''Alexandrian Saga''.<ref>[https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?161084 Thomas K. Carpenter], isfdb.org</ref><ref name=":0" />

His mother was a voracious reader of all science fiction and fantasy, and taught him the joy of reading.·He always loved writing and dreamt of one day being an author, but didn’t think he could make a career out of it.· So instead, he went to the Missouri University of Science and Technology to become a metallurgical engineer, where he began writing his first book. ·Although he finished the novel after graduating, as with most first projects, nothing became of it.<ref name=":0" />