Fantasy and Sci-Fi Author Debra Doyle, 1952-2020 (locusmag.com) 24
Long-time Slashdot reader serviscope_minor wanted to remind us that 2020 also saw the death of science fiction/fantasy author Debra Doyle at the age of 67 from a sudden cardiac event. "Her works were co-written with her husband, James D. Macdonald," notes her entry on Wikipedia:
Her first work written with Macdonald was "Bad Blood" in 1988. Their novel Knight's Wyrd was awarded the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature in 1992 and appeared on the New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age list in 1993. They published two series, Mageworlds (7 novels) and The Wizard Apprentice (8 novels), and two alternate history novels, Land of Mist and Snow and Lincoln's Sword.
Doyle and Macdonald also published together under other names. They published their first novel, Night of Ghosts and Lightning, in 1989 under the house name Robyn Tallis; two Tom Swift novels under the house name Victor Appleton; Pep Rally, Blood Brothers, and Vampire's Kiss under the house name Nicholas Adams; and two Spider-Man novels as Martin Delrio.
Together Doyle and Macdonald made up part of the core membership of the sff.net website and rec.arts.sff newsgroup. Doyle also taught at the Viable Paradise genre writer's workshop on Martha's Vineyard.
Doyle and Macdonald also published together under other names. They published their first novel, Night of Ghosts and Lightning, in 1989 under the house name Robyn Tallis; two Tom Swift novels under the house name Victor Appleton; Pep Rally, Blood Brothers, and Vampire's Kiss under the house name Nicholas Adams; and two Spider-Man novels as Martin Delrio.
Together Doyle and Macdonald made up part of the core membership of the sff.net website and rec.arts.sff newsgroup. Doyle also taught at the Viable Paradise genre writer's workshop on Martha's Vineyard.
Talk her up a bit, FFS. (Score:3, Insightful)
Disclaimer: I am not a big sci-fi fan, and have not heard of Debra Doyle before.
If I was writing a summary of someone's obiutary that I wanted people to read further, I would not start with the fact that they won the "Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature" 28 years ago or the fact that they were on the New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age list 27 years ago.
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Ditto. I read Dozois's Best Science Fiction of the Year anthology religiously (and RIP Gardner Dozois), and follow the major SF awards, yet Doyle's name rang no bells. Also, she died two months ago, so this is hardly news any more. This co-author's death made the front page, but not Terry Goodkind or Neal Peart? Or even Mike Resnick, who is relatively little-known but still had five Hugo awards and a Nebula award to his name?
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RIP Gardner Dozois. I have also never heard of Debra Doyle.
Tough couple of years for Science Fiction and Fantasy authors. Ben Bova passed just last month. Over the last few years Harlan Ellison, Christopher Tolkien, Gene Wolfe, etc. Or for that matter, Joanna Cole, the author of the Magic School Bus kids, really could have used a mention on Slashdot. I'm sure plenty of people here either read those books, watched the TV show, or shared them with their children.
The age of the "classic," speculative hard scie
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She was one of the first authors I read as a child and is how I got started in science fiction/fantasy lit. She is not well known because it has always been hard to get her books. I remember waiting 3-4 years before we were able to get all of the books for the Wizards Apprentice (originally called Circle of Magic, no idea why they changed it) series. They were variously out of print for a long time. I have them all now and we have held onto them over the years because, even now as an adult, I still enjoy pi
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So you are telling us why she is a special author, not giving us a list of ancient, minor, irrelevant prizes she once won.
You should have written this story.
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He was pissed because James Tiptree Jr, Ursula LeGuin and Octavia Butler could write circles around him. And those women did not write about "dragons and unicorns".
Bova proved you can have a dick and still be a cunt.
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Ursula LeGuin did, indeed, write about dragons. Her "Wizard of Earthsea" trilogy is ALL about dragons. Of course, she wrote other good stuff, too. "Left Hand of Darkness" comes to mind.
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And that getting downvoted shows what normal people are up against here.
Father Ted (Score:2)
Re: Ben Bova quote (Score:1)
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Le Guin and L'Engle are the only female SF novelists I can recollect reading.
I generally think caring about the gender of the author rather than about the quality of the work is rather pointless - what next, are we going to select books based on the author's hair color or blood group? This point of view is probably old fashioned, and maybe bordering on thought crime in the brave new world of identity politics, so, without more ado, let me recommend some SF women writers I found really good (this is off the top of my head, of course).
If you like space opera, try Lois McMaster Bujold
Leaning over and looking at my bookshelf (Score:2)
and skipping the Anne McCaffrey and Naomi Novik:
Lois McMaster Bujold
C. J Cherryh
Jo Clayton
Vonda McIntyre
Elizabeth Moon
Sherri S Tepper
Joan Vinge
(Yes, I'm seriously out of date)
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The parent has been donvoted by fools who do oppose open discussion.
groobly has quoted a famous recently-deceased author on a subjetc relavent to this post.
That is what we call INFORMATIVE.
Here it is again:
Ben Bova, who also died recently, on woman sf authors: “Women have written a lot of books about dragons and unicorns,” he added, “but damned few about future worlds in which adult problems are addressed.”
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The parent has been donvoted by fools who do oppose open discussion.
That's an interesting take, since neither the parent not you have been trying to discuss anything. What both of you appear to be trying is to play the offense card and "cancel" Ben Bova, after selectively picking some random quote from his very extensive output. Neither his post nor yours provide any useful information, and I'm not surprised at all they were down-modded. This isn't reddit, and random virtue signalling is not automatically rewarded (quite yet).
You want to discuss Ben Bova's statement, as opp
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And now YOU get downvoted for correctly correcting people !
FFS, Slashdot.
Whom will Trump nominate to replace her? (Score:1)
So, whom will Trump nominate to replace her — and will the Senate approve?
Ouch! That's my age!!!! (Score:2)
Bad news (Score:2)
Crap. I haven't seen the two of them at a con in a long, long time, but they were friends of mine.
Oh, and all the over/undereducated spammers on slashdot, let's see if *you* can, for example, read ancient Icelandic as Debra could.