She is the author of the bestselling Benjamin January mystery series featuring a free man of color, a musician and physician, in New Orleans in the antebellum years. Other historical fiction by Hambly includes novels about Mary Todd Lincoln and Abigail Adams.
Her science fiction novels occur within an explicit multiverse, as well as within previously existing settings (notably as established by Star Trek and Star Wars).
Early life and education
Hambly was born in San Diego, California and grew up in Montclair, California. Her parents, Everett Edward Hambly Jr. and Florence Elizabeth (Moraski) Hambly, are from Fall River, Massachusetts; and Scranton, Pennsylvania (respectively). She has an older sister, Mary Ann Sanders, and a younger brother, Everett Edward Hambly, III. In her early teens, after reading J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, she affixed images of dragons to her bedroom door. She became interested in costumery from an early age, and has been a long-time participant in Society for Creative Anachronism activities. In the mid-1960s, the Hambly family spent a year in Australia.
She chose work that allowed her time to write;[1] all of her novels contain a biography paragraph with a litany of jobs: high school teacher, model, waitress, technical editor, all-night liquor store clerk, and Shotokan karate instructor. Her first published novel was The Time of the Dark (1982).
From 2006 to 2023, Hambly taught at Los Angeles Pierce College as an adjunct assistant professor in the history and humanities department.[3] The Barbara Hambly Papers are archived at University of California, Riverside. [4]
Marriage and personal life
Hambly was married for some years to George Alec Effinger, a science fiction writer. He died in 2002. She lives in Los Angeles. Hambly speaks freely of suffering from seasonal affective disorder, which was undiagnosed for some time.
Themes within fantasy
Hambly's work has several themes. She has a penchant for unusual characters within the fantasy genre, such as the menopausal witch and reluctant scholar-lord in the Winterlands trilogy, or the philologist secret service agent in the vampire novels.[5]
Her writing is filled with rich descriptions and characters whose actions bear consequences for both their lives and relationships, suffusing her series with a sense of loss and regret.[6] Hambly's characters suffer the pain of frustrated aspirations to a degree that is uncommon in most fantasy novels.[7]
Though using many standard clichés and plot devices of the fantasy genre, her works explore the ethical implications of the consequences of these devices, and what their effect is for the characters, were they real people. In avoiding the "...easy consolatory self-identification of genre fantasy"[7] (p.449) and refusing to let her work be guided more explicitly by conventions and the desires of her audience, Hambly may have missed out on more remunerative success and acclaim.[7]
Although magic exists in many of her settings, it is not used as an easy solution but follows rules and takes energy from the wizards. In the Darwath, Windrose, and Sun-Cross stories, unusual settings are justified as alternate universes.[8][citation needed]
Hambly heavily researches her settings, either in person or through books, frequently drawing upon her degree in medieval history for background and depth.[9]
This historical mystery series begins with A Free Man of Color (1997) and features Benjamin January, a brilliant, classically educated, free colored surgeon and musician living in New Orleans during the antebellum years of the 1830s. At the time, New Orleans had a large and prosperous population of free people of color. Born a slave, as his mother was enslaved, January was freed as a young child by his mother's lover, under the plaçage system. Provided with an excellent education, he gained fluency in several classical and modern languages, and was thoroughly versed in the whole of classical Western learning and arts. He studied medicine in Paris, where he trained as a surgeon. He returned to Louisiana to escape the memory of his late wife, a woman from North Africa. As a free black in Louisiana, he cannot find work as a surgeon. He earns a modest living by his exceptional talent as a musician.
Death and Hard Cider (Hardcover – June 7, 2022)[20]
The Nubian's Curse (Hardcover - January 2, 2024)[21]
Murder in the Trembling Lands (Hardcover - July 1, 2025)[22]
Short stories
"Libre" (2006, short story in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, November 2006, Salute to New Orleans issue. Available on Hambly's website.)
"There Shall Your Heart Be Also" (2007, short story in New Orleans Noir, ed. Julie Smith. Available on Hambly's website.)
"A Time to Every Purpose Under Heaven" (2010, short story starring Rose and Dominique, and taking place while Benjamin is away (plot of The Shirt on His Back). Available on Hambly's website.)
Historical fiction
Search the Seven Hills [originally The Quirinal Hill Affair] (1983)
The Emancipator's Wife (2005; finalist for the Michael Shaara Prize for Excellence in a Civil War Novel, 2006)
Patriot Hearts (2007)
Homeland: A Novel (2009)
Abigail Adams Mysteries (written as Barbara Hamilton)
The Ninth Daughter (2009)
A Marked Man (2010)
Sup with the Devil (2011)
Sherlock Holmes short story pastiches
"The Adventure of the Antiquarian’s Niece" (2003, Shadows Over Baker Street, ed. Michael Reaves & John Pelan, narrated by Dr. Watson)
"The Dollmaker of Marigold Walk" (2003, My Sherlock Holmes, ed. Michael Kurland, narrated by Mrs. Mary Watson)
"The Lost Boy" (2008, Gaslight Grimoire, ed. J. R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec, narrated by Mrs. Mary Watson)
"The Adventure of the Sinister Chinaman" (2010, Sherlock Holmes: Crossovers Casebook, ed. Howard Hopkins, narrated by Dr. Watson)
Anne Steelyard: The Garden of Emptiness
An Honorary Man (2008, graphic novel)
The Gate of Dreams and Starlight (2009, graphic novel)
The short story "Sunrise on Running Water" (2007, published in the anthology Dark Delicacies II: Fear) is set in the world of the James Asher novels but does not feature Asher himself.
Scandal in Babylon (2021). Not exactly a sequel to Bride of the Rat God, which was a supernatural fantasy. Hambly decided that the same characters, with the same names and mostly the same backstories, would work well in a mystery, eventually a series, without supernatural elements.
One Extra Corpse (2023)
Saving Susy Sweetchild (2024)
Standalone works
Bride of the Rat God (1994; Locus Award nominee, 1995) and (sequel) Castle of Horror (April 2016, Amazon/Kindle)[26]
Magic Time (2002) (with Marc Zicree. The first of a trilogy. The other two volumes are by other authors: Angelfire by Marc Scott Zicree and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, and Ghostlands by Marc Scott Zicree and Robert Charles Wilson.)
Renfield: Slave of Dracula (2006)
"Someone Else's Shadow" (short story in the Night's Edge anthology)
1 2 3 Clute, J. & Grant, J. (1999). The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. Orbit: London (UK)
↑ “'I came through the void that separates your universe from mine'” (Barbara Hambly, The Time of the Dark, page 32). “He would explain, earnestly, that he was a wizard in another universe.” “'Mostly they’re from other universes—other dimensions, I think people say here'” (Barbara Hambly, “Plus-One”). Rhion of Sligo, hero of the Sun-Cross series, is a wizard who has travelled through “the darkness that lay between universes” (Barbara Hambly, The Magicians of Night, page 1)
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