Hans Joachim Alpers

He was born in Bremerhaven.

As an editor he co-founded the highly successful German-language role-playing game The Dark Eye and the Science Fiction Times and as a critic he was a contributor to Science Fiction Studies. As a writer he used several pseudonyms including Jürgen Andreas, Thorn Forrester, Daniel Herbst, Gregory Kern, Mischa Morrison, P.T. Vieton, and Jörn de Vries. He won the Kurd-Laßwitz-Preis for the novels Das zerrissene Land and Die graue Eminenz. He also co-wrote a six-volume series of young-adult SF with Ronald M. Hahn Das Raumschiff der Kinder (translates as "The Children's Spaceship").

He edited anthologies, annual publications, and reference works. Anthologies included Science Fiction aus Deutschland: 24 Stories von 20 Autoren (1974). Annual publications included the Science-fiction-Almanach (1981–1987) and Science-fiction-Jahrbuch (1983–1987). Reference works included Reclams Science-fiction-Führer (1982), Lexikon der Science-fiction-Literatur (1980, 1988), Lexikon der Horrorliteratur (1999), and Lexikon der Fantasy-Literatur (2005).

He lived in Hamburg.