David Claude Smith Jr. (born August 10, 1952) is an American author of fantasy, horror, and suspense fiction, medical editor, and essayist.

Smith was born in Youngstown, Ohio,[1] and since 1996 has lived in Palatine, Illinois, with his wife, Janine, and their daughter, Lily.

[2] Smith's collaborations with Tierney and some of his short fiction have been issued in German, and Oron has been translated into and reprinted in Czech.

Oron and its prequels—Mosutha's Magic (1982), The Valley of Ogrum (1982), and The Ghost Army (1983)—as well as the novel The Sorcerer's Shadow (1978) and 26 short stories and novelettes (1971 to 2020) are set on the imaginary ancient island-continent Attluma.

Sometime Lofty Towers (Pulp Hero Press, 2020) has been called “the literary artistic height that contemporary sword and sorcery can aspire to.”[4] "Shadow of the Serpent" appears in Terra Incognita: Lost Worlds of Fantasy and Adventure (DMR Books, 2022); a tale of Akram, hero of The Sorcerer’s Shadow.

A tour guide for all the Attluma stories published up to March 2021 is hosted by BlackGate.com to help readers understand the chronicles of tales versus publication dates (Aug 2020, edited in 2021 to include Sometime Lofty Towers).

The Fall of the First World comprises The Master of Evil (manuscript title, The West Is Dying), Sorrowing Vengeance, and The Passing of the Gods.

(Rosiéres-en-Haye, France: Camion Blanc, 2014) [tr]; and "Introduction," in Swords of Steel, Dave Ritzlin, ed.