Lester del Rey was a prolific American science fiction author and editor. Besides his writing, he is also know for Del Rey Books, the fantasy and science fiction branch of Ballantine Books which he edited with his wife. Among the awards he won were the 1972 E. E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction; the 1985 Balrog Special Award; the 1990 Nebula Grand Master Award; and the title of SFWA Grand Master in l99l.

In Victory, one of his best short novels, a victorious captain returns to his home planet after an alien war and finds that victory has a very steep price and that Earthmen seem to have suddenly all become cowards.