Christian Cameron was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1962. He grew up in Rockport, Massachusetts; Iowa City, Iowa; and Rochester, New York, where he attended McQuaid Jesuit High School and later graduated from the University of Rochester with a degree in history. After the longest undergraduate degree on record (1980–87), he joined the United States Navy, where he served as an intelligence officer and as a backseater in S-3 Vikings in the First Gulf War, in Somalia, and elsewhere. After a dozen years of service, he became a full-time writer in 2000. He lives in Toronto, Ontario, with his wife, Sarah, and their daughter, Beatrice. He may be found on the web at www.hippeis.com.