ROBERTS, John Maddox

(1947-)

   US writer, prolific in the later 1980s. His first sf novel, The Strayed Sheep of Charun (1977; rev vt Cestus Dei 1983), is an action-packed romance set on a medievalized planet in which Jesuits and others attempt to reform the violence which is the planet's (and novel's) raison d'etre. There followed a variety of work, all adventure fiction - whose style is perhaps best described as brisk - in sf or fantasy settings, including the juvenile SPACE-OPERA sequence comprising Space Angel (1979), in which the commandeering of a spaceship by an ancientALIEN leads to adventures for a boy, and its sequel Spacer: Window of the Mind (1988). King of the Wood (1983) is set in an alternate USA inhabited variously by Norsemen, Native Americans, Aztecs and Spanish Muslims. The Cingulum sequence about a raffish spaceship crew's adventures is TheCingulum (1985), Cloak of Illusion (1985) and Cingulum \#3: The Sword, the Jewel and the Mirror (1988). JMR also collaborated on 4 books with Eric KOTANI (whom see for details): the sequence Act of God (1985), The Island Worlds (1987) and Between the Stars (1988), as well as Delta Pavonis (1990). JMR's The Enigma Variations (1989) sets an amnesiac in a corporate future. While all this sf activity was going on, JMR also contributed several titles to the ever-growing Conan series, set in a SHARED WORLD derived from Robert E. HOWARD's famous SWORD-AND-SORCERY stories: Conan the Valorous * (1985), Conan the Champion * (1987), Conan the Marauder * (1988), Conan the Bold * (1989), Conan the Rogue * (1991), Conan and theManhunters* (1994) and Conan and the Treasure of Python* (1994). The Stormlands series, set in a tribalized fantasy world, so far comprises The Islander (1990), The Black Shields (1991), The Poisoned Lands (1992), The Steel Kings(1993) and Queens of Land and Sea (1994).

   PN

   Other works: the associational SPQRsequence comprising SPQR (1990), SPQR II: The Catiline Conspiracy (1991), \#3: The Sacrilege (1992) and \#4: The Temple of theMuses (1992), police-procedural mystery novels set in ancient Rome.