Biography

John Kenneth Muir (born December 3, 1969) is an American literary critic. As of 2022, he has written thirty reference books in the fields of film and television, with a particular focus on the horror and science fiction genres. Born December 3, 1969, Muir began his full-time writing career in 1996, penning several books for the North Carolina-based publisher of scholarly reference books, McFarland & Company. Muir also has written monographs about SF-TV, including Exploring Space: 1999 (1997), An Analytical Guide to Battlestar Galactica (1998), A Critical History of Dr. Who on TV (1999), A History and Critical Analysis of Blake's 7 (1999) and An Analytical Guide to TV's One Step Beyond (2001).Muir was educated at the University of Richmond in Virginia from 1988 to 1992, where he studied for two years under renowned Hudson Review film critic, Bert Cardullo (a student of The New Republic's film critic Stanley Kauffmann). Muir also counts Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert as important career influences.Muir's first book, Exploring Space: 1999 was published five years after his graduation from University, in April 1997. The book was the first English language attempt to analyse the television series Space: 1999 in a wider cultural context, and is sometimes compared and contrasted with a similar French book written by Pierre Fageolle.In 2009, Muir became a member of the artist collective, Tecamachalco Underground. The following year he was a judge at the ACEFEST NYC2010 Film Festival, occurring August 20–28, 2010.