Mark Lawrence was born in 1966, in the United States, specifically in Urbana–Champaign, Illinois, to British parents. He moved to the United Kingdom at the age of one. Lawrence has a degree in physics and holds a PhD in mathematics from Imperial College. After completing his PhD, he returned to the US to work on various research projects, including the ‘Star Wars’ missile defence programme. Later, he returned to the UK, where he worked primarily on image processing and decision/reasoning theory.

Although he never aspired to be a writer, a tentative attempt to find an agent quickly turned into a global publishing deal. His debut trilogy, The Broken Empire, has been acclaimed as a groundbreaking work of fantasy. This was followed by the related Red Queen’s War trilogy, and the Book of the Ancestor trilogy, set on a different world and followed by the related Book of the Ice trilogy. Additionally, he wrote the Impossible Times trilogy, a D&D/sci-fi work set in 1980s London. These trilogies can be read in any order.

Lawrence is married and has four children. He is the primary caregiver for his disabled child, Celyn, which precludes him from traveling to promote his books or attend conventions. He works as a novelist and was a research scientist in the field of artificial intelligence, having held secret-level clearance with both US and UK governments.

Since 2015, Lawrence has operated the annual Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off, a literary contest aimed at increasing visibility for self-published English-language fantasy authors.