YARBRO, Chelsea Quinn

(1942-)

   US writer and composer, active in the mystery and occult genres as well as sf. In the 1980s she became (and has remained) best known for the Saint-Germain sequence of fantasies about a sympathetic immortal vampire of aristocratic birth. Set in Europe and elsewhere over a span of centuries, the main sequence comprises Hotel Transylvania: A Novel of Forbidden Love (1978), The Palace (1978), Blood Games (1980), Path of theEclipse (1981), Tempting Fate (1982), The Saint-Germain Chronicles (coll of linked stories 1983; exp vt The Vampire Stories 1994), Out of the House of Life (1990), The Spider Glass (1991 chap), Darker Jewels (1993) and Better in the Dark (1993); a subsidiary sequence, the Atta Olivia Clemensbooks, about Saint-Germain's vampire lover, comprises A Flame in Byzantium (1987), Crusader's Torch (1988) and A Candle for D'Artagnan (1989). Asboth sequences have progressed, CQY has decreasingly concentrated upon the vampirism of her protagonists and spent much more energy establishing some historical verisimilitude for the territories visited, sticking more and more frequently to the end of the Roman Empire.In other words, CQY has moved a significant distance from sf - which she began publishing with "The Posture of Prophecy" for If in 1969 - and seems unlikely to returnexcept casually. Her most significant sf work, most of it decidedly more pessimistic about the world than her tales set in the past, came early. The stories assembled in Cautionary Tales (coll 1978) share an energeticstarkness, a tendency for her characters - as James TIPTREE Jr remarked in the introduction to the book - to engage in rather arousing operatic duets and tirades, and a genuinely DYSTOPIAN vision of times to come; some other tales of interest were assembled in Signs \& Portents (coll 1984). Her first sf novel, Time of the Fourth Horseman (1976) - in which a plan to head off OVERPOPULATION by reinfecting children with various diseases gets radically out of hand - confirmed this sense of her work; as did False Dawn (in Strange Bedfellows [anth 1973] ed Thomas N. SCORTIA; exp 1978),which is set further into the future and likewise deals with a world ravaged by mutated diseases. Nor did Hyacinths (1983), set in a NEAR FUTURE dystopian USA characterized by a wrecked economy and mindcontrol, modify the sense that CQY was an author entirely in control of what she wished to say, and in what genre. Sf was a genre which enabled her to look forward into the dark, once in a while. For the most part, she has gazed elsewhere.

   JC

   Other works: The Ogilvie, Tallant \& Moon detective series, with fantasy elements, comprising Ogilvie, Tallant \& Moon (1976; vt Bad Medicine 1990), False Notes (1991), Poison Fruit (1991)and Cat's Claw (1992); the Michael series of occult quasifictional tracts, comprising Messages from Michael on the Nature of the Evolution of the Human Soul (1979) and More Messages from Michael (1986); Dead \& Buried *(1980), a film tie; Bloodgames (1980); Sins of Omission (1980); Ariosto: Ariosto Furioso, a Romance for an Alternate Renaissance (1980); On Saint Hubert's Thing (1982 chap); CQY (1982 chap); The Godforsaken (1983); A Mortal Glamour (1985); Nomads * (1984), a film tie; Locadio's Apprentice (1984); Four Horses for Tishtry (1985); To the High Redoubt (1985); A Baroque Fable (1986); Floating Illusions (1986); Firecode (1987); Taji's Syndrome (1988), an sf medical horror novel; Beastnights (1989); The Law in Charity (1989), a Western; Crown of Empire (1994), essentially by her, but \#4 in the Crisis of Empire sequence created by David DRAKE.As Vanessa Pryor: A Taste of Wine (1982), associational.As Editor: Two Views ofWonder (anth 1974) with Thomas N. SCORTIA.

   See also: ARTS; DISASTER; GOTHIC SF; IMMORTALITY; LEISURE; MEDICINE; MUSIC; OVERPOPULATION; PSI POWERS; PSYCHOLOGY; SURVIVALIST FICTION.