Mark Shepherd | |
|---|---|
 Mark Shepherd, August 2003 | |
| Born | Robert Marky Shepherd September 21, 1961 Tampa, Florida, U.S. |
| Died | May 24, 2011 (aged 49) |
| Occupation | |
| Genre | Fantasy, science fiction |
| Notable works | Wheels of Fire (novel) with Mercedes Lackey, Elvendude (novel), Blackrose Avenue (novel), Spiritride (album) |
Mark Shepherd was an American fantasy novelist and musician.
Born Robert Marky Shepherd on September 21, 1961 [1] in Tampa, Florida, [2] during the 1990s Shepherd was a writing protégé and live-in personal secretary of author Mercedes Lackey and artist Larry Dixon at Highflight, their Tulsa, Oklahoma residence.
He co-authored two novels with Lackey, and composed music to accompany his later books. He also wrote several short stories.
Shepherd's secretarial duties at Highflight were taken over by Englishman Paul Fisher in 2000. [3]
During his later years, Mark founded Pagan Sanctum Recovery, a 12-step group for Pagans recovering from addictions of all kinds.
He committed suicide by shooting himself on May 24, 2011. [4]
Shepherd's first published work was Wheels of Fire, a collaboration with Mercedes Lackey, and the 2nd novel in her SERRAted Edge series.
Intended to draw attention to the plight of abused children, Wheels of Fire focused on mother Cindy Chase's search for her son Jamie, who had been abducted by her estranged husband and kept prisoner by a religious cult. An epilogue to the story provided several hotline help numbers.
Wheels of Fire was later reprinted in the omnibus edition The Otherworld, which was made available in e-text format as part of Baen Books', on the disc included with initial hardcover printings of Mercedes Lackey and Roberta Gellis' This Sceptre'd Isle.
Alinor, protagonist of Wheels of Fire, briefly mentions an elf Grove located in Dallas, Texas, which is the primary setting for Shepherd's solo spin-offs.
Believing himself to be an ordinary teenager raised by a single mom, Adam McDaris discovers that his "mother" is in fact the local elf-king's daughter, who pledged to take her brother the Heir to safety, hiding him as a mortal to escape detection by the enemy who destroyed their home. The novel's plot involves an evil organization plotting world domination through the distribution of vials of magical crack cocaine.
The ghosts of human motorcycle riders get caught up in a war between the restored Elfhame Avalon and the drug-dealing Unseleighe Prince who plagues them.
With her brother secure on his rightful throne, adventurous elven Lady Samantha returns to the "real" world as an FBI agent, investigating a series of mysterious disappearances at a laser arcade in Tulsa.
Collaborating again with Mercedes Lackey, Shepherd wrote Prison of Souls, the third novel in The Bard's Tale computer game tie-in novelization series.
Shepherd later followed it up with a solo sequel, Escape from Roksamur, reprising the adventures of his character Alaire.
Blackrose Avenue is Shepherd's 2001 standalone novel, set in a dystopic future wherein rebels struggle to free the country from the grip of a fanatic religious regime which has taken over. All those with HIV are put into concentration camps, according to the "Good Law." [5]
Mark Shepherd composed music inspired by his writing, including full soundtracks to Elvendude, Spiritride, and Laserwarz. [6]
Spiritride was released on cassette tape by Firebird Music. Blackrose Avenue, the CD is available via Yard Dog Press, publisher of the novel it accompanies.
Mark Shepherd has a brief cameo in Mercedes Lackey's novel Jinx High, as a student attending a creative writing class. He was also the inspiration for her character Vanyel Ashkevron from The Last Herald Mage trilogy.[ citation needed ]
Mercedes Ritchie Lackey is an American writer of fantasy novels. Many of her novels and trilogies are interlinked and set in the world of Velgarth, mostly in and around the country of Valdemar. Her Valdemar novels include interaction between human and non-human protagonists with many different cultures and social mores.
Baen Books is an American publishing house for science fiction and fantasy. In science fiction, it emphasizes space opera, hard science fiction, and military science fiction. The company was established in 1983 by science fiction publisher and editor Jim Baen. After his death in 2006, he was succeeded as publisher by long-time executive editor Toni Weisskopf.
Firebird and fire bird may refer to:
The Bard's Tale is a fantasy role-playing video game designed and programmed by Michael Cranford for the Apple II. It was produced by Interplay Productions in 1985 and distributed by Electronic Arts. The game was ported to the Commodore 64, Apple IIGS, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Amiga, Atari ST, DOS, Macintosh, and NES. It spawned The Bard's Tale series of games and books. The earliest editions of the game used a series title of Tales of the Unknown, but this title was dropped for later ports of The Bard's Tale and subsequent games in the series.
Larry Dixon is an American fantasy artist and novelist.
The Bolo universe is a fictional universe based on a series of military science fiction books by author Keith Laumer. It primarily revolves around the eponymous "Bolo", a type of self-aware tank. They first appeared in the short story Combat Unit (1960), and have since been featured in science fiction novels and short story anthologies by him and others.
Michael Z. Williamson is an American military science fiction and military fiction author best known for his libertarian-themed Freehold series published by Baen Books. Between 2004 and 2016, Williamson published eight Freehold novels, exploring military and political themes as well as first contact with alien beings. This was followed by the Forged in Blood (2017) and Freehold: Resistance (2019) anthologies, consisting of short stories taking place in the Freehold universe, some by Williamson and some by other authors, including Larry Correia, Tony Daniel, Tom Kratman and Brad R. Torgersen.
The Bard's Tale is a fantasy role-playing video game franchise created by Michael Cranford and developed by Brian Fargo's Interplay Productions (1985–1992) and inXile Entertainment (2004–present). The initial title of the series was Tales of the Unknown. The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight dropped the Tales of the Unknown series title, as did all ports of the original game after 1988. From then on, the series was known as The Bard's Tale series. Both Cranford and Fargo have refuted the assertion that the original projected titles for the second and third installments were The Archmage's Tale and The Thief's Tale.
Judith Tarr is an American fantasy and science fiction author.
Alexander James Adams is an American singer, musician and songwriter in the Celtic and World music genres. He blends mythical, fantasy, and traditional themes in performances, switching between instrumental fiddle and songs accompanied by guitar, bodhrán, and fiddle playing. He has also been an artist in the field of filk music and won multiple Pegasus awards.
Dave Freer is a South African–born, Australian-based science fiction author writing mostly humorous or alternate history novels.
Rosemary Edghill is an American writer and editor. Some of her work has appeared under her original name, eluki bes shahar. Her primary genres are science fiction and fantasy, but she began by writing Regency romance novels.
Elemental Masters is a fantasy series by American writer Mercedes Lackey, taking place on an alternate Earth where magic exists. The series largely focuses on Elemental Masters, people who have magical control over air, water, fire, or earth. Each elemental master has power over elementals, as well. Each book in the series is loosely based on a fairy tale.
The Ship Who Sang (1969) is a science fiction novel by American writer Anne McCaffrey, a fix-up of five stories published 1961 to 1969. By an alternate reckoning, "The Ship Who Sang" is the earliest of the stories, a novelette, which became the first chapter of the book. Finally, the entire "Brain & Brawn Ship series", written by McCaffrey and others, is sometimes called the "Ship Who Sang series" by bibliographers, merchants, or fans.
Heroes in Hell is a series of shared world fantasy books, within the genre Bangsian fantasy, created and edited by Janet Morris and written by her, Chris Morris, C. J. Cherryh and others. The first 12 books in the series were published by Baen Books between 1986 and 1989, and stories from the series include one Hugo Award winner and Nebula nominee, as well as one other Nebula Award nominee. The series was resurrected in 2011 by Janet Morris with the thirteenth book and eighth anthology in the series, Lawyers in Hell, followed by eight more anthologies and four novels between 2012 and 2022.
The Sword of Knowledge is a trilogy of shared world fantasy novels credited to the authors C. J. Cherryh, Leslie Fish, Nancy Asire, and Mercedes Lackey. The three novels in the series were all published by Baen Books in 1989: A Dirge for Sabis, Wizard Spawn, and Reap the Whirlwind. The books were first released as a complete trilogy in an omnibus edition in 1995.
Sarah A. Hoyt is a Portuguese-born American science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and historical fiction writer. She moved to the United States in the early 1980s, married Dan Hoyt in 1985, and became an American citizen in 1988.
This is a list of books by Mercedes Lackey, arranged by collection.
Roberta Leah Jacobs Gellis was an American writer of historical fiction, historical romance, and fantasy. She held master's degrees in both biochemistry and medieval literature.
This is complete list of works by American science fiction and historical fiction author Eric Flint.
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