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Barbara Hambly

Author of Children of the Jedi

132+ Works 31,824 Members 515 Reviews 87 Favorited

About the Author

Barbara Hambly lives in Los Angeles, where she is at work on the sixth Benjamin January novel, "Wet Grave", which Bantam will publish in 2002. Her second Benjamin January novel, "Fever Season", was named a "New York Times" Notable Book of the Year. (Publisher Provided) Barbara Hambly was born in show more San Diego, California on August 28, 1951. She received a master's degree in medieval history from the University of California at Riverside in 1975. She has worked as a high-school teacher, a model, a waitress, a technical editor, and a karate instructor. At one time, she also wrote scripts for cartoons like Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors and He-Man. She writes many different types of books including fantasy, romance, and mystery. Her works include the Darwath Trilogy, the Benjamin January Mysteries series, Those Who Hunt the Night, The Emancipator's Wife, Someone Else's Shadow, and Patriot Ladies. She has also written for the Star Trek universe, the Star Wars universe, and the Beauty and the Beast television program. She is a Locus award winner. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Series

Works by Barbara Hambly

Children of the Jedi (1995) 1,754 copies
Dragonsbane (1985) 1,661 copies
Those Who Hunt the Night (1990) 1,465 copies
The Time of the Dark (1982) 1,339 copies
Planet of Twilight (1997) 1,316 copies
The Walls of Air (1983) 1,140 copies
The Armies of Daylight (1983) 1,080 copies
The Silent Tower (1986) 1,077 copies
The Ladies of Mandrigyn (1984) 1,053 copies
The Silicon Mage (1988) 940 copies
A Free Man of Color (1997) 901 copies
The Dark Hand of Magic (1990) 871 copies
Ishmael (1985) 837 copies
The Witches of Wenshar (1987) 815 copies
Stranger at the Wedding (1994) 785 copies
Dog Wizard (1993) 733 copies
Traveling with the Dead (1996) 684 copies
Mother of Winter (1996) 600 copies
Dragonshadow (1999) 586 copies
The Rainbow Abyss (1991) 576 copies
Icefalcon's Quest (1998) 569 copies
Fever Season (1998) 559 copies
Bride of the Rat God (1994) 518 copies
Sisters of the Raven (2002) 499 copies
Knight of the Demon Queen (2000) 493 copies
Ghost-Walker (1991) 485 copies
The Magicians of Night (1992) 475 copies
Graveyard Dust (1999) 445 copies
Crossroad (1994) 430 copies
Sold Down the River (2000) 404 copies
Die Upon a Kiss (2001) 388 copies
Wet Grave (2002) 372 copies
Dragonstar (2000) 363 copies
Renfield: Slave of Dracula (2006) 318 copies
Days of the Dead (2003) 314 copies
The Emancipator's Wife (2005) 305 copies
Dead Water (2004) 293 copies
Circle of the Moon (2005) 274 copies
The Ninth Daughter (2009) 266 copies
Patriot Hearts (2007) 233 copies
Magic Time (2001) 212 copies
Darkmage (1987) 211 copies
Blood Maidens (2010) 176 copies
Sisters of the Night (1995) — Editor — 168 copies
Search the Seven Hills (1983) 162 copies
Beauty & The Beast (1989) 159 copies
Dead and Buried (2010) 146 copies
Ran Away (2011) 124 copies
The Shirt on His Back (2011) — Author — 115 copies
The Magistrates of Hell (2012) 112 copies
Winterlands (1999) 105 copies
Good Man Friday (2013) 103 copies
Homeland (2009) 88 copies
Song of Orpheus (1990) 87 copies
A Marked Man (2010) 86 copies
The Kindred of Darkness (2013) 80 copies
Crimson Angel (2014) 72 copies
Sup with the Devil (2011) 69 copies
Drinking Gourd (2016) 67 copies
Darkness on His Bones (2015) 65 copies
Scandal in Babylon (2021) 50 copies
Pale Guardian (2017) 44 copies
Murder in July (2017) 41 copies
Cold Bayou (2018) 40 copies
Lady of Perdition (2020) 32 copies
Prisoner of Midnight (2019) 32 copies
The Iron Princess (2023) 31 copies
Death and Hard Cider (2022) 27 copies
House of the Patriarch (2020) 25 copies
Firemaggot [short story] (2015) 23 copies
One Extra Corpse (2023) 22 copies
Plus-One [short story] (2012) 17 copies
Die Abenteuer des Raumschiffs Enterprise (1994) — Contributor — 16 copies
Corridor [short story] (2011) 15 copies
Personal Paradise (2015) 12 copies
Libre - short story (2007) 12 copies
Gravemould and Ectoplasm (2019) 11 copies
Castle of Horror (2016) 11 copies
Whisper (Darwath series) (2015) 11 copies
Elsewhere (2017) 10 copies
Hagar (2015) 10 copies
Zenobie (2015) 10 copies
Dreamers of Black Rock (2018) 9 copies
Death on the Moon (2016) 8 copies
Nanya of the Butterflies (2015) 8 copies
A Time For Every Purpose Under Heaven (2010) — Author — 8 copies
A Night with the Girls (2015) 7 copies
Fairest in the Land (2015) 7 copies
Hazard (2017) 7 copies
Sunrise on Running Water (2007) 7 copies
Just Like Real People (2019) 5 copies
Princess (2015) 4 copies
Gwenael (2018) 4 copies
Star Trek: Die klassische Serie (1995) — Contributor — 4 copies
Hag in the Water (2017) 3 copies
Each Damp Thing 2 copies
Repossession 1 copy
fantasy 1 copy

Associated Works

The Sandman: Book of Dreams (1996) — Contributor — 2,005 copies
Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina (1995) — Contributor — 1,371 copies
Tales from Jabba's Palace (1995) — Contributor — 1,253 copies
The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (2009) — Contributor — 758 copies
Shadows Over Baker Street: New Tales of Terror! (2003) — Contributor — 703 copies
Did You Say Chicks?! (1998) — Contributor — 476 copies
Once Upon a Time: A Treasury of Modern Fairy Tales (1991) — Contributor — 368 copies
By Blood We Live (2009) — Contributor — 293 copies
War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches (1997) — Contributor — 227 copies
Budayeen Nights (2003) — Foreword, some editions — 199 copies
Mojo: Conjure Stories (2003) — Contributor — 145 copies
Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes (2009) — Contributor — 119 copies
Dark Delicacies II: Fear (2007) — Contributor — 110 copies
Bending the landscape : Horror (2001) — Contributor — 106 copies
Hellboy: Oddest Jobs (2008) — Contributor — 98 copies
My Sherlock Holmes: Untold Stories of the Great Detective (2003) — Contributor — 88 copies
Live! From Planet Earth (2005) — Introduction — 72 copies
Chicks Ahoy! (2010) — Contributor — 51 copies
Girls Night Out: Twenty-nine Female Vampire Stories (1997) — Contributor — 48 copies
Xanadu 2 (1994) — Contributor — 45 copies
Sherlock Holmes: The Crossovers Casebook (2012) — Contributor — 22 copies
Gaslight and Ghosts (1988) — Contributor — 9 copies
From Twilight Till Dawn: Great Vampire Stories (2009) — Contributor — 5 copies

Tagged

19th century (114) anthology (853) Barbara Hambly (171) Benjamin January (325) Darwath (258) dragons (208) ebook (517) fantasy (5,666) fiction (3,516) hardcover (123) historical (403) historical fiction (608) historical mystery (308) horror (522) Kindle (238) magic (324) mmpb (152) mystery (1,504) New Orleans (408) novel (231) own (163) paperback (309) read (415) romance (123) sandman (147) science fiction (1,763) Science Fiction/Fantasy (203) series (435) sf (431) sff (584) Sherlock Holmes (205) short stories (713) speculative fiction (149) Star Trek (517) Star Wars (1,293) to-read (1,410) unread (302) vampire (173) vampires (535) wizards (121)

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Unusual blend of fantasy and horror, with two (80s) contemporary characters persuaded to help in a last ditch struggle against Lovecraftian type monsters in another parallel world. This series has it all: magic, warriors, monsters, edge of the seat suspense, political struggles, romance. Flawed characters and the non obvious e.g. who ends up paired with whom. I first read it a long time ago and have re-read it a few times since, latest re-read August 2020.
 
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kitsune_reader | 15 other reviews | Nov 23, 2023 |
On this re-read, I will just add this to my overall summary under the first book: as the trilogy enters the closing laps, the characters are put through the ringer even more, with more political shenanigans, treachery, hopeless endeavours, and backs to the wall. If I was reading this fresh now, I might have taken off a star from vols 2 and 3, because there are some aspects, such as the over sentimental portrayal of Queen Minalde/Alde, and the occasional bit of head-hopping between characters within a scene, that I find slightly irritating, but staying true to my original perception and in view of this still being very enjoyable, I am sticking with the original 5 star rating for each volume.… (more)
 
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kitsune_reader | 7 other reviews | Nov 23, 2023 |
See short summary for book 1 - the only thing I would modify this with, on August 2020 re-read, is that this does suffer slightly from the middle book of a trilogy syndrome, because the characters are split up and I did remember the big shock-horror revelation early on in my re-read. But staying true to my original perception, I am leaving this at 5 stars.
 
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kitsune_reader | 6 other reviews | Nov 23, 2023 |
In this 6th volume of the series, Lydia Asher is in Paris at the hospital bedside of her husband James who is a coma following a fall from a church tower - except that to her and her vampire friend, Don Simon Ysidro, to whom she turns for help, he bears the marks of a vampire attack. The story then follows her attempts with Simon's help to find out what James was doing in Paris and why he has been attacked, while he lies too ill to move and various enemies close in along with the German guns, WWI having broken out. The story is fairly convoluted following the twin machinations of Germans who want to use vampires as a weapon of war, the attempts by various groups to locate a fabled vampire artefact, and the threat by hostile vampires to finish off James. Meanwhile James is having dreams in which he is an onlooker on events in Simon's life in 17th century Paris which have a bearing on the current crisis.

I think this book would have worked much better if it had been a spinoff from the series and dealt with Simon's life in the past from his point of view rather than James Asher's. He is by far the most interesting character in this series and it becomes a bit tiresome to have the reiterated dilema of the Ashers spelled out - that vampires are evil, that James has now turned to hunting them, and that they should kill Simon but depend on him too much for protection against other vampires. If Simon's interactions in the 17th century with other vampires and the church officials who were manipulating him by holding out hope of his salvation, and his conflict between that and his strong friendship with the then vampire Master of Paris, plus his relationship with his human servant Tim who, like the church, wants him to kill 'heretic' vampires, had been the focus of the story instead of appearing as tantalising snippets I think it would have been absorbing. As it is, to some extent this book goes over well trodden old ground and I find the Ashers increasingly irritating and irrelevant, so for me this was only a 3 star read and I won't be bothering with any more of this series. A pity after the absorbing first two volumes, but too many of them since then have been following a formula and falling flat by failing to deliver on promising beginnings.
… (more)
 
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kitsune_reader | 2 other reviews | Nov 23, 2023 |

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Associated Authors

Brad Ferguson Contributor
Majliss Larson Contributor
A. C. Crispin Contributor
Diane Duane Contributor
Diana L. Paxson Contributor
Jane Yolen Contributor
Steve Rasnic Tem Contributor
Melanie Tem Contributor
Dean Wesley Smith Contributor
Deborah Wheeler Contributor
Larry Niven Contributor
Tanith Lee Contributor
Michael Kurland Contributor
M.John Harrison Contributor
Pat Cadigan Contributor
Dean Morrissey Cover artist
Shelly Shapiro Cartographer, Illustrator
Donato Giancola Cover artist
Ron Butler Narrator
Mark Salwowski Cover artist
Darrell K. Sweet Cover artist
David O'conner Cover artist
David B. Mattingly Cover artist
Nicole Poole Narrator
Jason Seder Cover artist
Michael Whelan Cover artist
Romas Kukalis Cover artist
Les Edwards Cover artist
Tom Kidd Cover artist
Keith Birdsong Cover artist
Gabriel Stein Translator
Walter Velez Cover artist
Royce M. Becker Cover artist
Edwin Herder Cover artist
Mark Topham Cover artist
Ken Kelly Cover artist
Don Maitz Cover artist
Michael Herring Cover artist
Chris Barbieri Illustrator
Keith Scaife Cover artist
Heather Kem Cover designer
Stephen Bradbury Cover artist
Kevin Jenkins Cover artist
Robert Rodriguez Cover artist
Luis Rey Cover artist
Ronald M. Hahn Translator
Romas Cover artist
Mark Garro Cover artist
Jethro Soudant Cover artist
Ian McCaig Cover artist
John Jude Palencar Cover artist
Alan Reingold Cover artist
Eric Baldwin Cover artist

Statistics

Works
132
Also by
25
Members
31,824
Popularity
#622
Rating
½ 3.7
Reviews
515
ISBNs
563
Languages
10
Favorited
87
Touchstones
828

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