John Barnes (born 1957) is an American science fiction author.
Two of his novels, The Sky So Big and Black and The Duke of Uranium have been reviewed as having content appropriate for a young adult readership, comparing favorably to Robert A. Heinlein's "juvenile" novels.
The four novels in the Thousand Cultures series include the theme of the effects of globalization, at an interstellar scale, on isolated societies.
The Last President was originally scheduled for 2012, but was delayed due to disagreements between Barnes and the publisher over the direction the series was taking.
Barnes is considering re-writing the first two books to make them more consistent with his original conception of the series.