Karl Olsberg wrote his Ph.D. thesis on artificial intelligence. He worked as amanagement consultant, marketing manager, and game developer, and founded three award-winning start-up companies. His first novel, Das System, was published in 2007 and became an international bestseller, nominated for the Kurd-Lasswitz-Award as best German science fiction novel. Since then, he has published more than 20 books. Among them are the bestselling series Cubeworld and The Villagers, based on the computer game Minecraft, which he loves to play together with his three sons.