DOUGLAS, Carole Nelson

(1944-)

   US writer who began her career as a feature writer 1967-84 for the St Paul Pioneer Press. Her first novels, like Amberleigh (1980), were historical romances. She has become best known for energetic, layered high-fantasy tales like Six of Swords (1982), the first volume in her Kendric and Irissa sequence, which continues with Exiles of the Rynth (1984), Keepers of Edanvant (1987), Heir of Rengarth (1988) and Seven of Swords (1989). Though she has been an infrequent author of sf, the Probe sequence - Probe (1985) and Counterprobe (1988) - is of some interest for its slow unfolding of the mystery behind the amnesia afflicting a young woman who has PSI POWERS and who turns out to be what the title says she is: a probe inserted by ALIENS into the human world to gather data. But love intervenes. It may be the case that CND will never wish to shake herself completely free of romance idioms and plotlines; but, if she does so, she might become one of the significant genre writers of the 1990s.

   JC

   Other works: Fair Wind, Fiery Star (1981; much exp restored text 1994), pirate tale set partly in the Bermuda Triangle; The Crystal books, Crystal Days (1990) and Crystal Nights (coll 1990), associational, with some of the same cast appearing in the Midnight Louie fantasy sequence comprising Catnap: A Midnight Louie Mystery (1992) Pussyfoo (1993) and Cat on a Blue Monday (1994); Good Night, Mr Holmes * (1990), Good Morning, Irene * (1991) and Irene at Large (1993), associational pastiches of Sherlock Holmes; the projected Taliswoman Trilogy, beginning with Cup of Clay (1991) and Seed Upon the Wind (1992).

   See also: SUPERMAN.