A Quick Flyover of Suzy's Work
A collection of short works including novellas "Listening to Brahms" and "Beauty and the Opera", plus two reflective pieces: one on making the stage play "Vampire Dreams", one looking back on a career as one of the cadre of fresh, energetic, and challenging women authors who crashed the SF ghetto in the seventies and changed it forever. — SMC
An ancient, top-of-the-food-chain predator, the world's only vampire, jeopardizes his comfortable professorial disguise by attacking the wrong victim, and his life -- if you can call it that -- spins increasingly out of his control. Close encounters of very unexpected kinds -- with an unhappy schoolboy, a brilliant and beautiful psychotherapist, a power-hungry cult leader, and a troubled anthropologist -- lead Dr. Weyland to the outer edges of his own identity and survival. The third chapter, a novella titled "Unicorn Tapestry," won a Nebula Award. — SMC
Walk to the End of the World, the first part of the Holdfast Chronicles A stripped-down, barbarous future is dominated by stifling patriarchy, but a clever female slave accompanies three male adventurers on a journey that will alter all their lives, and their country the Holdfast, forever. Alldera the runner, carrying a secret message meant to save her people from destruction, touches the mind and soul of a young man groomed to be the next leader of men, and the Holdfast's repressive regime explodes into chaos -- and renewal. Short-listed for the John W. Campbell Award. — SMC
Motherlines, the second part of the Holdfast Chronicles In the country of nomadic Amazons called the Riding Women, Alldera the runner must make her way among the competing demands of warrior women who have always been free, and other escaped fems from the Holdfast who seem unable to learn how not to be slaves. In a storm of conflicting loyalties and rival claims to the daughter she bore in the tents of the Riding Women, Alldera grows into a leadership role she never sought but cannot evade. — SMC
The Furies, the third part of the Holdfast Chronicles Borne home on the tide of history, Alldera leads an army of escaped slaves through the ruins of the Holdfast in a fierce campaign to subdue whatever men survive and to free all women still in bondage. Raging battles, unexpected reunions, new loves and bitter betrayals await the victorious liberators. Their triumphant siezure of power brings new challenges as well as new grudges, new alliances, and new possibilities. Shortlisted for the James Tiptree Jr. Literary Award. — SMC
The Conqueror's Child, the conclusion of the Holdfast Chronicles Alldera's daughter Sorrel, left behind to grow up among the free Riding Women of the plains, crosses the mountains seeking safety for an outcast child and becomes embroiled in the seething rivalries of the New Holdfast. Her legendary mother is away on a mission; meanwhile old enemies have turned homeward. Fate inexorably draws lovers and killers, parents and children, slaves, warriors and startling strangers from afar into a stunning climax of revenge, loss, love -- and unquenchable hope for the future. Winner, 1999 James Tiptree Jr. Literary Award. an outcast child and becomes embroiled in the seething rivalries of the New Holdfast. Her legendary mother is away on a mission; meanwhile old enemies have turned homeward. Fate inexorably draws lovers and killers, parents and children, slaves, warriors and startling strangers from afar into a stunning climax of revenge, loss, love -- and unquenchable hope for the future. Winner, 1999 James Tiptree Jr. Literary Award. — SMC
Dorothea, a reclusive artist, works secretly on the sculptural transformation of a cliff-face near her Taos home. Ricky, world traveler and dearest friend, comes to see her one last time before going home to die. Together these two try to decipher the strange dreams of another time that haunt Dorothea. Meanwhile, a busload of schoolkids and their young, desperate kidnappers rush northward toward a perilous real-world confrontation in Dorothea's house, where fateful questions about both past and present will be asked and answered, and the direction of several futures will be decided. — SMC
The Ruby Tear, romantic suspense with a vampire flavor, under the pen-name Rebecca Brand Actress Jessamyn Croft struggles to recover from a near-crippling accident, reclaim her stage career, and discover why Nic, her ex-fiance, so coldly and suddenly rejects her. Increasingly frightening "accidents" at the theatre threaten her come-back appearance. At the same time a suave and mysterious European adventurer enters her life -- and, inexplicably, Nic's life too, all because of a fabulous jewel with a deep and bloody past. — SMC
The Bronze King, Book One of the Sorcery Hall Trilogy
— SMC
The Silver Glove, Book Two of the Sorcery Hall Trilogy Valentine's mother is courted by Dr. Brightner, the new school psychologist -- but he's actually a soul-stealing sorcerer (and he has a wife already, the cruel witch Ushah)! Brightner plans to steal the magic hidden in Val's family heritage to help him force helpless human spirits into the ranks of his zombie army in a desperate war against the good Wizards. Val and her friends join forces with Val's magical grandmother to rescue Valentine's mom and, incidentally, the world. — SMC
The Golden Thread, Book Three of the Sorcery Hall Trilogy Val and her friends, depressed by a bleak Christmas season, create a group cheering-up ritual, accidentally inviting into their lives an odd and imperious "foreign student". Bosanka Lonat appears at school commanding them to help her find her vanished people, great hunter-rulers of a distant, now empty world. With her grandmother lying near death, two schoolmates transformed into wild deer, and Joel self-committed to a nuthouse, Val must somehow draw everyone together to answer the demands of this powerful and ruthless alien girl. — SMC
Amy is drawn into the magical refuge of the bully who used to beat her up and steal her lunch money. Now Kevin, a handsome boy who stars in the role of annointed prince and savior of the fantasy kingdom of the Fayre Farre, is trapped there in the extravagent plot he created for himself. If he is to survive, defeat his frightful enemy, and save his world and its people, he must have Amy's help. But why should she help him, and how? A dizzying, scary, funny adventure full of Kevin's skewball versions of elves, dwarves, trolls, demons, and all the usual suspects in any Heroic Fantasy landscape. — SMC Vampire Dreams (a play), and a weird opportunity
The Vampire Tapestry's Dr. Weyland in a stage script, in which "the therapy chapter" is expanded and deepened. Weyland has been played by a 23-year old dancer; a dapper actor with a Van Dyke beard and (on opening night anyway) 8 stitches in his scalp; a bald and sinewy martial arts instructor; and a tall, Gable-esque southerner. It worked every time; the role is fool-proof -- though a short, roly-poly Weyland probably wouldn't cut it... — SMC
Strange Seas (non-fiction) Do whales have souls? Is the humpbacks' singing truly song, or just crude signaling? The author, driven by a fascination with ships and the sea, explores such questions with a friend whose car crash has left her physically crippled but psychically gifted. Discovering enormous, exciting vistas in our understanding of the cetaceans, the author launches her own quest to reconnect with a soulmate in the sea. An astounding report from the psychic frontier. — SMC
My Father's Ghost:This nonfiction book of reflections
on the reunion of Suzy with her artistic hermit of a father, and account of the last two decades of his life living next door to her in New Mexico, is currently out of print.
Excerpt from My Father's Ghost
List of fiction and nonfiction available in electronic formats.
A collection of my dark-fantasy short fiction, which contains the Hugo-winner "Boobs," the Nebula-winner "Unicorn Tapestry," a lush novella about the real fate of the Phantom of the Opera called "Beauty and the Opéra or The Phantom Beast", and a horror story about a witch in modern suburbia, "Evil Thoughts". — SMC
Copyright © 2002 — 2006 by Suzy McKee Charnas |
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