Early Life
Perry was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and spent much of his early life in the American South. Before settling into a writing career, he held a wide range of jobs: swimming instructor, lifeguard, toy assembler, hotel gift shop clerk, car rental agent, aluminum salesman, martial arts instructor, private detective, and nurse.1 This eclectic background, particularly his time as a martial arts instructor, would later inform both his fiction and his television scripts.
Career
Perry launched his professional writing career in prose fiction, publishing science fiction novels and short stories from the early 1980s onward. He is perhaps best known for the Matador series, a sequence of science fiction novels built around the fictional martial art of Sumito (also known as "The 97 Steps").1 His range extended well beyond original fiction: he contributed novelizations and tie-in novels to major franchises, including the Star Wars expanded universe, the Alien series, the Conan series, and Indiana Jones. His novelization of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (1996) was a bestseller3, as was his novelization of Men in Black.4 He collaborated with Michael Reaves on a long series of books including science fiction novels (Hellstar, Sword of the Samurai, Dome, The Omega Cage) and Star Wars tie-ins (MedStar I: Battle Surgeons, MedStar II: Jedi Healer, Death Star).1 Seven volumes of the Tom Clancy's Net Force series he co-wrote appeared on the New York Times Bestseller list.1
On the television side, Perry wrote scripts for multiple animated series throughout the late 1980s and 1990s. His credits span Centurions, Spiral Zone, Starcom: The U.S. Space Force, The Real Ghostbusters, Batman: The Animated Series, Gargoyles, Street Fighter: The Animated Series, Godzilla: The Series, Spider-Man Unlimited, Conan and the Young Warriors, Extreme Ghostbusters, and Batman Beyond. His most acclaimed television work was on Batman: The Animated Series, where his scripts included "Night of the Ninja", "Day of the Samurai", "Mudslide" (co-written with Alan Burnett), "Time Out of Joint", "The Lion and the Unicorn", and "The Mechanic". One of his Batman: The Animated Series scripts earned a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Writing.1
Perry is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, The Animation Guild, and the Writers Guild of America, West.1
Ghostbusters
The Real Ghostbusters
Perry wrote three episodes of The Real Ghostbusters, frequently partnering with Michael Reaves, his longtime collaborator across both television and prose:
Perry also noted on his website two story ideas for the series that were apparently never produced: "Comrade Ghost" and "If This is 1930, Then This Must be Soho."
Extreme Ghostbusters
Perry contributed one episode to Extreme Ghostbusters:
Personal Life
Perry married Dianne Waller, an executive at the Port of Portland. They have two children and five grandsons.1 His daughter is science fiction author S.D. Perry (Stephani Danelle Perry), who has published her own series of horror and tie-in novels.5 Perry practices Silat, a Southeast Asian martial art; the practice directly inspired the fictional fighting system of Sumito that runs through the Matador novels, as well as the martial art Teräs Käsi, which appeared in the Star Wars video game Masters of Teräs Käsi (1997).1
References
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
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"Steve Perry (author)," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Perry_(author).
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"Stephen Perry (writer)," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Perry_(writer).
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Perry, Steve (1996). Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire. Bantam Spectra, New York. ISBN 9780553574135 (paperback). Hardcover first published April 1, 1996.
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Perry, Steve (1997). Men in Black: A Novel. Bantam Books, New York. ISBN 9780553577563.
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"S.D. Perry," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._D._Perry.
