James Reasoner

Last updated

James Reasoner (born June 5, 1953) is an American writer. He is the author of more than 350 novels and many short stories in a career spanning more than thirty years. Reasoner has used at least nineteen pseudonyms, in addition to his own name: Jim Austin; Peter Danielson; Terrance Duncan; Tom Early; Wesley Ellis; Tabor Evans; Jake Foster; William Grant; Matthew Hart; Livia James; Mike Jameson; Justin Ladd; Jake Logan; Hank Mitchum; Lee Morgan; J. L. Reasoner (with his wife); Dana Fuller Ross; Adam Rutledge; and Jon Sharpe. Since most of Reasoner's books were written as part of various existing Western fiction series, many of his pseudonyms were publishing "house" names that may have been used by other authors who contributed to those series. [1] [2] [3] [4]

Contents

Life

Reasoner was born in Fort Worth, Texas. He moved to the town of Azle, Texas when he was two weeks old and still resides there. He attended North Texas State University. He married his wife Livia Washburn in 1976, and they had two daughters. His wife also became a fiction writer of some distinction and has written more than 25 books, including several co-written with Reasoner. Early in his career, Reasoner did freelance work for newspapers. For several years, he and his wife owned two local bookstores. His first novel, Texas Wind, which is one of his few mysteries, was published in 1980. [1] [2] [3]

Literary focus

Reasoner's primary focus over the years has been on fictional stories of the old west, with more than 100 of his novels having been in this genre. However, he has also written some well regarded historical fiction on earlier periods of American history including the American Civil War; early frontier pioneering after the Lewis and Clark Expedition; and the American Revolution. Much of his work has involved series novels typically with continuing characters, although he has written several stand-alone novels as well.

A majority of his western novels were written for the established western fictional series of several publishing houses that sometimes used other authors to work on these series, hence the use of "house" pseudonyms for these novels determined by the publisher. This body of his work includes his writing for Pocket Books (Abilene series); Jove (Longarm and Lone Star series); Signet Books (Trailsman series); and Bantam Books (Cody's Law series), among others. However, he also wrote two Western series with his own name (Wind River, Justice Stark), as well as several stand-alone western novels.

His ten book historical fiction series on Civil War battles followed the Brannon family through the war, as described in the separate Wikipedia article on the James Reasoner Civil War Series (see external link below). This series received favorable reviews, with one review describing his work as "robust, detail-rich, and well-paced." [5]

Reasoner wrote six books in the 1990s as prequels to Noel Gerson's popular twenty-four book Wagons West series. These books provided fictional accounts of American frontier pioneering following the Lewis and Clark expedition in the early 1800s. The books were part of two trilogies, The Frontier Trilogy and The Empire Trilogy. They were written after Gerson's death in 1988, and Reasoner used the same pseudonym, Dana Fuller Ross, that Gerson had used for the earlier books. [1] [2] [3]

Partial bibliography

A partial listing of Reasoner's books follows: [6]

The Civil War Battle Series, written as James Reasoner:

The Wagons West Frontier Pioneering Prequels, written as Dana Fuller Ross:

The Wind River western fiction series, written as James Reasoner:

Selected western series with multiple authors, with Reasoner using "house" pseudonym:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pen name</span> Names authors use instead of real names

A pen name or nom-de-plume is a pseudonym adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name.

John William Jakes was an American writer, best known for historical and speculative fiction. His American Civil War trilogy, North and South, has sold millions of copies worldwide. He was also the author of The Kent Family Chronicles. Jakes used the pen name Jay Scotland among others.

A wagon train is a group of wagons traveling together. Before the extensive use of military vehicles, baggage trains followed an army with supplies and ammunition.

The Longarm books were a series of western novels featuring the character of Custis Long, who is nicknamed Longarm, a U.S. Deputy Marshal based in Denver, Colorado in the 1880s. The series was written by "Tabor Evans", a house pseudonym used by a number of authors at Jove Books. Lou Cameron helped create the character and wrote a number of the early books in the series. The first book was published in 1978 and new ones were added at a rate of approximately one a month through 2015. In addition to the regular series, there was a series of "giant editions" which were longer novels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western fiction</span> Literary genre

Western fiction is a genre of literature set in the American Old West frontier and typically set from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. Well-known writers of Western fiction include Zane Grey from the early 20th century and Louis L'Amour from the mid-20th century. The genre peaked around the early 1960s, largely due to the popularity of televised Westerns such as Bonanza. Readership began to drop off in the mid- to late 1970s and reached a new low in the 2000s. Most bookstores, outside a few west American states, only carry a small number of Western fiction books.

James Luceno is an American author, known for his novels and reference books connected with the Star Wars franchise and the Star Wars Expanded Universe, and novelizations of the Robotech animated television series. Luceno is also the author of several original novels along with film novelizations and other franchise tie-ins. He has also written for television cartoon series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yuri Nikitin (author)</span>

Yuri Aleksandrovich Nikitin is a Russian writer of science fiction, historical fiction, and Slavic fantasy.


Harry Whittington was an American mystery novelist and one of the pioneers of the paperback novel. Born in Ocala, Florida, he worked in government jobs before becoming a writer. His reputation as a prolific writer of pulp fiction novels is supported by his writing of 85 novels in a span of twelve years mostly in the crime, suspense, hardboiled, and noir fiction genres. In total, he published over 200 novels. Seven of his writings were produced for the screen, including the television series Lawman (1958-1962). His reputation as 'The King of the Pulps' is shared with author H. Bedford-Jones. Eight of Whittington's hardboiled noir novels were republished by Stark House Press.

Robert Edward Vardeman is an American science fiction fan and writer.

Jon Sharpe was the original author of The Trailsman series of Western novels. The century series, which has run since the early 1980s, was created by author Jon Messmann, who wrote most of the first 200 books in the series under the Jon Sharpe pseudonym until his retirement in the late 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Harris (novelist)</span> British novelist

John Harris was a British novelist. He published a series of crime novels featuring the character Inspector Pel, and war books. He wrote with his own name, and also with the pseudonyms of Mark Hebden and Max Hennessy. His 1953 novel The Sea Shall Not Have Them was the basis for a feature film of the same name in 1954. He was the father of Juliet Harris, who published more Inspector Pel books under the name of Juliet Hebden.

John Henry Reese was an American author, mainly of Western and Crime Fiction. He won the prestigious 1952 New York Herald Tribune award for his first children's book, Big Mutt. He produced more than 40 Western novels and more than three hundred short stories. His first novel Sheehan's Mill, not of the Western genre, was published by Doubleday in 1943, during wartime publishing restrictions.

William Everett Cook, was a western writer who used the pen names Will Cook,James Keene,Wade Everett and Frank Peace. Called "a master western storyteller," Cook published dozens of short stories and 50 novels before his death at age 42. A number of his stories and novels were turned into Hollywood westerns, including the 1961 John Ford film Two Rode Together.

Wade Everett was the pseudonym used by the author Will Cook for some of his western novels. After Cook died in 1964, his Everett byline had become valuable enough that Ballantine Books turned it into a house name for novels written by other authors, including Giles A. Lutz.

Richard Edward Wormser was an American writer of pulp fiction, detective fiction, screenplays, and Westerns, some of it written using the pseudonym of Ed Friend. He is estimated to have written 300 short stories, 200 novelettes, 12 books, many screenplays, and stories turned into screenplays, and a cookbook: Southwest Cookery or At Home on the Range.

Lou Cameron was an American writer and a comic book artist.

Noel Bertram Gerson (1913–1988) was an American author who wrote 325 books, including several best sellers, among them two screenplay novelizations penned under the pseudonym Samuel Edwards, The Naked Maja, and 55 Days at Peking.

Dwight Bennett Newton was an American writer of westerns. He also wrote under the names Dwight Bennett, Clement Hardin, Ford Logan, Hank Mitchum and Dan Temple. Newton was one of the six founder members of the Western Writers of America. He was a writer and story consultant for various television shows including Wagon Train and Tales of Wells Fargo.

Richard Clay Reynolds was a Texan novelist, essayist, book critic and English professor. Author of more than 10 books of fiction, five books of nonfiction, hundreds of published essays and 1000+ critical book reviews, he lived and taught at universities in Texas and elsewhere.

Lyle Kenyon Engel was an American magazine publisher and book producer. Taking over the family business after his father's death, Engel made the company the largest publisher of lyric magazines in the country. He later founded Book Creations, Inc., which became one of the most successful "fiction factories" in the United States, hiring writers to write books to Engel's outlines which he sold to paperback publishers. Engel's most successful series was The Kent Family Chronicles by John Jakes.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Weiss, Brett, The Writer, (May 2011), "James Reasoner", Gale's Literature Resource Center.Web
  2. 1 2 3 Birns, Margaret (January 2007), Guide to Literary Masters and Their Works, EBSCOhost.Web
  3. 1 2 3 Fuller, Amy, Editor (2010) Gales Contemporary Authors, Volume 289. ISBN   978-1-4144-3954-9
  4. ↑ Hawk, Pat (1995). Hawk's Author's Pseudonyms II. ISBN   0-9643-1851-2
  5. ↑ Publishers Weekly (October 9, 2000), "James Reasoner's Civil War Battle", Gale's Literature Resource Center.Web
  6. ↑ "James Reasoner's Bibliography". Official Website. Archived from the original on 2013-09-22. Retrieved 2013-09-30.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.