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Peter Morwood (born 20 October 1956, Northern Ireland) is primarily a fantasy novelist and screenwriter, though he has also written works of science fiction; his best-known works include the Horse Lords series and the Tales of Old Russia series. He lives in Ireland with his wife, writer Diane Duane, with whom he has co-authored several works.
Morwood was born Robert Peter Smyth in Lisburn, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, and lived there for more than thirty years. From 1969 to 1975 he attended Friends School Lisburn, a Quaker-operated primary and middle school, and then Queen's University in Belfast, where he studied English literature and acquired an honours bachelor's degree with an emphasis on middle-English poets such as Chaucer. During this period Morwood also took pilot training as a cadet pilot with the Queen's University Student Air Squadron of the Royal Air Force; though budgetary considerations (on the Air Force's side) forced Morwood to make a choice between his degree studies and his further studies as a pilot. He chose to continue his work in English literature, and subsequently resigned his commission.
After graduation from university in 1979, Morwood took a position in the UK's civil service as a clerk working for the Customs and Excise.
During this period he began work on his first novel, which he submitted and sold in 1982. He adopted the pen name "Peter Morwood" in honour of his mother, whose maiden name was Morwood, and he legally changed his surname to match the pen name in the mid-1980s. His second and third novels were published in 1984 and 1986.
At a science fiction convention in Glasgow, Scotland in 1985, Morwood was introduced by author Anne McCaffrey to his future wife, the fantasist and science fiction writer Diane Duane. After several more meetings and a brief courtship, Morwood asked Duane to marry him, and they celebrated their engagement at the World Science Fiction Convention in Atlanta, Georgia. Morwood then returned to Northern Ireland to complete his term of employment in the Civil Service, and resigned his post in December 1986. Shortly thereafter he relocated to Los Angeles, California, where Duane was working for the animation studio DiC. They were married at the New England regional science fiction convention, Boskone, on 15 February 1987.[ citation needed ]
Later in 1987, Morwood and Duane relocated briefly to Scotland, and then, after a short period spent roving the United Kingdom, to County Wicklow in Ireland, where the two of them reside, in Grangecon, County Wicklow as of 2004. [1]
These two sequences of books center on a feudal-style realm called Alba and the struggles of various clans for its domination. The first sequence is told from the point of view of Aldric Talvalin, scion of a warrior clan of Alba, who is unwillingly drawn into the bloody intrigues of Alban politics and the machinations of the Drusalan Empire, including its power-behind-the-throne, the evilly scheming and sorcerous Commander Voord.
A fifth book (tentatively titled The Shadow Lord) and a sixth (title as yet indeterminate) have been projected for more than two decades.
The four Horse Lords novels were reissued by DAW Books in 2005 as a pair of two-book omnibus volumes:
In Volume 2, the novel previously published as The Warlord's Domain was restored to its intended title, The War Lord.
The Clan Wars sequence is (so far) a pair of prequels, telling the story of how the Clan Lords (including Aldric Talvalin's remote ancestors) invaded the land of Alba, settled it, and eventually came to dominate it.
A third volume (tentatively titled Cradlesong) is projected.
This series, densely interwoven with motifs from Russian folktale and legend, tells the story of the young tsar Ivan Khorlovskiy, heir to the throne of the city of Khorlov. Complications instantly ensue when he meets, on a battlefield full of the slain, the sorceress-tsarevna Marya Morevna, "the most beautiful princess in all the Russias", and becomes involved willy-nilly in her entanglement with the ancient and deadly being known as Koschei the Undying. The series goes on to deal humorously with the difficulties of a "two-kingdom household", especially when one partner is both a skilled sorcerer and the mother of one's (rather unusual) children, and – more seriously – with the political problems that can beset a small independent tsardom in the face of such threats as the Teutonic Knights and the Golden Horde of the Great Khan.
A fourth volume, The Blue Kremlin, is projected since the mid-1990s.
Morwood has written one solo Star Trek novel:
He has also collaborated on one with Diane Duane (this novel was written during their honeymoon):
Morwood has occasionally collaborated with Diane Duane on other novels, primarily in "licensed" universes or shared-world scenarios. These include:
The Space Cops sequence:
Others:
Morwood has written various animated scripts, often in collaboration with his wife. These include:
In 1999, Morwood began development work along with Duane on a live-action retelling of one of the great German epics, the Nibelungenlied. The script they wrote between late 2002 and mid-2003 was produced as a miniseries for the German satellite network Sat.1 by Tandem Communications of Munich, in association with Sony/Columbia Pictures. Directed by Uli Edel, the miniseries, under the title Die Nibelungen, won a DIVA Award for best German movie-for-TV of 2004. A feature version, entitled Sword of Xanten in the UK, screened there late in 2004; a "megafeature" cut of the entire miniseries aired on Channel Four television in the UK in December 2005.
The miniseries had its premiere USA airing on the Sci-Fi Channel in late March 2006 under the title Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King . It has also been released on DVD in the US and many other markets, under various titles (the previous US title is Curse of the Ring.)
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Katharine Kerr is an American science fiction and fantasy novelist, best known for her series of Celtic-influenced high fantasy novels set in the fictional land of Deverry.
Kristen Britain is an American author. She wrote Green Rider, First Rider's Call, The High King's Tomb, Blackveil, and Mirror Sight. The sixth book in the Green Rider series, Firebrand, was released February 28, 2017. The seventh book "Winterlight" was released September 2021.
Star Trek: New Frontier is a series of interlinked novels written by Peter David, published by Simon & Schuster imprints, Pocket Books, Pocket Star, and Gallery Books, from 1997 to 2015. New Frontier was the first Star Trek tie-in fiction property not to be based on a television series. The series was created by John J. Ordover.
Diane Duane is an American science fiction and fantasy author, long based in Ireland. Her works include the Young Wizards young adult fantasy series and the Rihannsu Star Trek novels.
Star Trek: Rihannsu is a series of interlinked novels, written by Diane Duane and Peter Morwood, published by Pocket Books from 1984 to 2006. The series name was retroactively applied to the first novels with the release of new installments in 2000. A fifth novel was published in 2006.
Sean Thomas Russell is a Canadian writer of fantasy, and of historical novels featuring the Royal Navy. His work has been published under the names Sean Russell and S. Thomas Russell as well as his full name, and he has collaborated with Ian Dennis under the joint pseudonym T.F. Banks.
Keith Robert Andreassi DeCandido is an American science fiction and fantasy writer and musician, who works on comic books, novels, role-playing games and video games, including numerous media tie-in books for properties such as Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doctor Who, Supernatural, Andromeda, Farscape, Leverage, Spider-Man, X-Men, Sleepy Hollow, and Stargate SG-1.
Stephanie Diane Shaver is an American fantasy writer and video game developer.
Gate of Ivrel is a 1976 novel by American writer C. J. Cherryh, her first published work. It is the first of four books composing the Morgaine Stories, chronicling the deeds of Morgaine, a woman consumed by a mission of the utmost importance, and her chance-met companion, Nhi Vanye i Chya.
Star Trek: New Earth is a series of interlinked novels inspired by Gene Roddenberry's original pitch for Star Trek: "Wagon train to the stars." Created by John J. Ordover, the novels follow the crew of the Enterprise as they escort a colonial expedition into a hostile region of unexplored space.
Star Trek: The Manga is an original English-language manga from Tokyopop based on Star Trek: The Original Series that began in September 2006. Writers in the three volumes included Diane Duane, David Gerrold, Mike W. Barr and former Star Trek: The Next Generation cast member Wil Wheaton. Tokyopop released an additional manga based on The Next Generation in April 2009.
How Much for Just the Planet? is a 1987 science fiction novel by American writer John M. Ford, part of the Star Trek franchise.
Deborah Jean Ross, is an American science fiction and fantasy author.
Events from the year 1693 in Ireland.
The Romulan Way is a science fiction novel written by Diane Duane and Peter Morwood. It is the second novel in the Rihannsu series, in turn part of the Star Trek: The Original Series saga.
This is a list of books by Mercedes Lackey, arranged by collection.
