Jerry Oltion (born 1957) is an American science fiction author from Eugene, Oregon, known for numerous novels and short stories, including books in the Star Trek series.^[1] He is a member of the Wordos writers' group and also writes under the pen name "Ryan Hughes."

His novels include Frame of Reference (1987), Abandon in Place (2000), The Getaway Special (2001), Paradise Passed (2004), and Anywhere but Here (2005). His work has been compiled in the collections, Love Songs of a Mad Scientist: The Collected Stories of Jerry Oltion Volume One (1993), Singing in the Rain, The Collected Stories of Jerry Oltion Volume Two (1998), and Twenty Questions (2003). He contributed to Isaac Asimov's Robot City series with the books Alliance and Humanity (both in 1990). His work can also be found in numerous anthologies, such as Quest to Riverworld (1993) and Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina (1995).

As of November 2011, Oltion became the most published fiction author in the history of Analog magazine, with 84 stories. He has since attained over 98 as of March 2021.

Oltion has also written several Star Trek novels, including Twilight's End (1995), Mudd in your Eye (1996), and the New Earth novel, The Flaming Arrow (2000), the latter written in collaboration with his wife, Kathy. He also wrote a novel in Star Trek's Captain's Table series, Where Sea Meets Sky (1998).

Oltion is the designer of the trackball telescope, a light weight equatorial mounting system with an electromechanical star tracking drive. He publicly described the trackball in the August 2006 issue of Sky and Telescope magazine, and on his website. He placed the patent-able portions of his design in the public domain, making them more easily accessible to other telescope makers.^[2]

In June 2016 Oltion became a contributing editor at Sky and Telescope magazine, writing the monthly Astronomer's Workbench column.

Oltion won the 1998 Nebula Award for Best Novella for "Abandon in Place". He was also nominated for the Nebula Award two other times, for his 1993 novella "Contact", and his 2000 novella, "The Astronaut from Wyoming".

He won the 2006 Endeavor Award for best novel by a Northwest Author ("Anywhere But Here").

He was also nominated twice for the Hugo Awards for Best Novella, first for "Abandon in Place" in 1997, and then for "The Astronaut from Wyoming" in 2000, but did not win either time.^[3]

In 2007, Oltion and Adam-Troy Castro won the Seiun Award for Best Foreign Language Short Story of the Year for "The Astronaut from Wyoming."