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Spider Robinson (born November 24, 1948) is an American-born Canadian science fiction author. He has won a number of awards for his hard science fiction and humorous stories, including the Hugo Award 1977 and 1983, and another Hugo with his co-author and wife Jeanne Robinson in 1978.

Robinson was born in the Bronx, New York City; his father was a salesman. He was an avid reader of science fiction, and it was his early childhood exposure to the juvenile novels of Robert Heinlein that later influenced him to become a writer. He attended a Catholic high school, spending his junior year in a seminary; this was followed by two years in a Catholic college, and five years at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in the 1960s, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in English. While at Stony Brook, Spider entertained at campus coffeehouses and gatherings, strumming his guitar and singing in harmony with his female partner. It was at this time that his friends, at his request, stopped calling him his childhood nickname of "Robbie" (a simple contraction of his last name, Robinson) and gave him the nickname "Spider", which he eventually adopted as his official first name. Robinson adopted the name out of admiration for blues musician "Spider" John Koerner.