Kevin Wayne Jeter (born March 26, 1950)^[1] is an American science fiction and horror author known for his literary writing style, dark themes, and paranoid, unsympathetic characters. He has written novels set in the Star Trek and Star Wars universes, and has written three sequels to Blade Runner. Jeter coined the term "steampunks".^[2]

He went to Buena Park High School. Jeter attended college at California State University, Fullerton where he became friends with James P. Blaylock and Tim Powers, and through them, Philip K. Dick.^{[citation needed]} Jeter was actually the inspiration for "Kevin" in Dick's semi-autobiographical novel, Valis.^[3] Many of Jeter's books focus on the subjective nature of reality in a way reminiscent of Dick's.

Philip K. Dick enthusiastically recommended Jeter's early cyberpunk novel, Dr. Adder. Due to its violent and sexually provocative content, it took Jeter around ten years to find a publisher for it. Jeter would also coin the term steampunk, in reference to cyberpunk^[4] in a letter to Locus in April 1987, in order to describe the steam-technology, alternate-history works that he published along with his friends, Blaylock and Powers. Jeter's steampunk novels are Morlock Night, Infernal Devices, and its sequels Fiendish Schemes (2013) and Grim Expectations (2017).

As well as his own original novels, K. W. Jeter has written three authorized novel sequels to the critically acclaimed 1982 motion picture Blade Runner, which was adapted from Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.^[5]