[mudita]

The author has a degree in computer science and worked as a programmer and technical writer before becoming a full-time science fiction author, so yes.

[watersb]

IIRC, @cstross (who is on the HN here at times) had his first published work in contributions to the AD&D Monster Manual.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_Manual

Legit.

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=cstross