HAMBLY, Barbara

(1951-)

   US author, primarily of FANTASY, based in Southern California. She entered genre publishing with the Darwath Trilogy fantasy sequence, published by DEL REY BOOKS: The Time of the Dark (1982), The Walls of Air (1983) and The Armies of Daylight (1983). In these a historian and a bikerfrom Los Angeles find themselves in a struggle between Good and Evil in a PARALLEL WORLD where MAGIC works; the conventional fantasy situation isinvigorated to a degree by the lively treatment. Her Sun Wolf fantasy sequence, to date open-ended, is more original in both style and matter: The Ladies of Mandrigyn (1984), The Witches of Wenshar (1987)-reissuedtogether as The Unschooled Wizard (omni 1987) - and The Dark Hand of Magic (1990). These novels have, without preaching, an attractive element ofFEMINISM in their depiction of the women in their medieval fantasy world, some of whom are mercenaries, others at least potentially self-reliant.In the Windrose series - The Silent Tower (1986) and The Silicon Mage (1988), and Dog Wizard (1993), the first two assembled as Darkmage (omni 1988) - BH, who had previously used occasional sf ideas in her fantasy, produced atrue genre-bending sequence in its apposition of science and magic by placing two parallel worlds (one ours) in phase in a story involving an evil sorcerer's consciousness embedded in a COMPUTER as "a series of subroutines". BH's sole pure sf novel to date is Those who Hunt the Night (1988; vt Immortal Blood UK 1988), which was marketed as HORROR. It is agood whodunnit in the STEAMPUNK manner, set in Victorian England, about a skilled investigator hired to protect vampires - rationalized as a race parallel to humanity but with somewhat different ethics - from whoever is murdering them. Magicians (persecuted) behave once again rather as displaced SCIENTISTS in the initial world of the projected Sun-Cross sequence: The Rainbow Abyss (1991 UK) and The Magicians of Night (1992), both volumes being assembled as Sun-Cross (omni 1992) The second book, with savage irony, transports one of these true magicians into our own world among the occultists and pseudo-scientists clustered around Hitler in Nazi Germany.BH has created her own corner of the FANTASY market, characteristically pressing occasional sf ideas into the service of her fundamentally fantastic themes, but without pushing too hard against fantasy/sf genre constraints. Her books - by no means potboilers, and sometimes painful - are normally vigorous, interesting and alert within her self-imposed format.

   PN

   Other works: The Quirinal Hill Affair (1983; vt Search the Seven Hills 1987), an historical whodunnit; Ishmael * (1985), Ghost Walker * (1991) and Crossroad * (1994), all STAR TREK ties;Dragonsbane (1986), fantasy; Beauty and the Beast * (1989) and Beauty and the Beast: Song of Orpheus * (1990), novelizing tv episodes from BEAUTY AND THE BEAST; Stranger at the Wedding (1994; vt Sorcerer's War 1994 UK);Bride of the Rat God (1994).

   See also: HISTORY OF SF.