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Diane Duane (b. May 18, 1952) is an American science fiction and fantasy author. Her works include the Young Wizards children's series.

Biography

Born in New York City, she grew up in Roosevelt, Long Island. After school, she studied nursing and practiced as a psychiatric nurse for two years until 1976, when she moved to California and worked as an assistant to David Gerrold. Her first novel was published by Dell Books in 1979, and she subsequently worked as a freelance writer. (Gerrold wrote an "overture" to that novel, on the grounds that he'd rather be making overtures than introductions to Diane.) In 1981 she moved to Pennsylvania. She married Northern Irish author Peter Morwood in 1987; they moved to the UK and then to Ireland, where she currently resides in County Wicklow.

Bibliography

Young Wizards

  1. So You Want to be a Wizard (ISBN 0152047387) (1983)
  2. Deep Wizardry (ISBN 0152162577) (1985)
  3. High Wizardry (ISBN 0152162445) (1990)
  4. A Wizard Abroad (ISBN 0152162380) (1993)
  5. The Wizard's Dilemma (ISBN 0152025510) (2001)
  6. A Wizard Alone (ISBN 0152045627) (2002)
  7. Wizard's Holiday (ISBN 0152047719) (2003)
  8. Wizards at War (ISBN 0152047727) (2005)
  9. A Wizard of Mars (projected)
A short story within the same universe, "Uptown Local", has also been published as part of Jane Yolen's Dragons and Dreams anthology, and an mp3 of Duane reading it is freely available from her website as a podcast. A film script, "Wizards on Call" is being constructed at *. Readers can participate in contributing and editing the script

Feline Wizards
The series also includes two books that are not exactly in the series, but take place under the same setting, and in between books 4 and 5
  • Book of Night With Moon (US ISBN 0340693290, UK ISBN 0340693282) (1997)
  • To Visit the Queen (ISBN 0446673188), published in the UK as On Her Majesty's Wizardly Service (ISBN 0340693304) (1998)
  • The Big Meow (presently being published online as a subscriber-supported novel. See Duane's blog for details of the beginning of the project.)

Adult Wizards
Another book about an adult wizard was apparently meant to start another sub-series in the same setting, but no books have been written or published yet.
  • Short Circuit (projected) *

Alternate Universes
The Young Wizards universe contains canonical alternate universes (So You Want to Be a Wizard and Book of Night With Moon are good examples: the protagonists travel to alternate universes to solve problems there).
  • Stealing the Elf-King's Roses (ISBN 0446609838) is set in a sheaf of universes originally mentioned in Nita's studies in So You Want To Be A Wizard.

The Middle Kingdoms

Also known as the Tale of the Five, this high fantasy series has been awaiting completion since 1992. The books center on some of the same themes as her more well-known Young Wizards series; those who wield the Blue Fire have many of the same responsibilities as the wizards and fight the same battle against entropy. One interdimensional portal in The Door into Fire appears to open over New York City, presenting the possibility that the Middle Kingdoms are yet another canonical alternative universe within the Young Wizards setting. Unlike Duane's children's books, however, the Tale of the Five series deals openly with issues of alternative sexuality. Within the Middle Kingdoms, bisexuality and group marriage are the norm. Duane is still working on the final volume.
  1. The Door into Fire (1979)
  2. The Door into Shadow (1984)
  3. The Door into Sunset (1992)
  4. The Door into Starlight (not yet published)

Star Trek

She has also written a number of Star Trek novels, to wit,

  1. Star Trek: The Original Series #13: The Wounded Sky (1983)
  2. Star Trek: TOS #18: Rihannsu #1: My Enemy, My Ally (1984)
  3. Star Trek: TOS: Rihannsu #2: The Romulan Way, (written with husband Peter Morwood) (1987)
  4. Star Trek: Spock's World (1988)
  5. Star Trek: TOS #50: Doctor's Orders (1990)
  6. Star Trek: The Next Generation: Dark Mirror (ISBN 0671793772) (1993)
  7. Star Trek: TNG: #45: Intellivore (1997)
  8. Star Trek: TOS #95: Rihannsu #3: Swordhunt (2000)
  9. Star Trek: TOS #96: Rihannsu #4: Honor Blade (2000)
  10. Star Trek: Sand and Stars (with AC Crispin) (2004) (ISBN 0743496582)
  11. Star Trek: TOS #?? Rihannsu #5: The Empty Chair (scheduled for December 2006)

(Also scheduled for December 2006 publication is an omnibus edition of all the Rihannsu novels entitled "Rihannsu: The Bloodwing Voyages".)

Harbinger

The Harbinger Trilogy is set in the Star*Drive universe. While Duane isn't the only author to write for this universe, she was the first.

  1. Starrise at Corrivale (ISBN 0786911794)
  2. Storm at Eldala (ISBN 0786913347)
  3. Nightfall at Algemron (ISBN 0786915633)

Spider-Man

Duane wrote a number of Spider-Man novels for Byron-Preiss Multimedia from 1994 to 1998. These works include:

  1. The Venom Factor (Venom Factor Book 1) (ISBN 1572970383)
  2. The Lizard Saction (Venom Factor Book 2) (ISBN 1572971487)
  3. The Octopus Agenda (Venom Factor Book 3) (ISBN 1572972793)

Guardians of the Three

  • Keeper of the City, Book 2 of the series. (written with husband Peter Morwood) (1989)

SeaQuest DSV

  • SeaQuest DSV: The Novel (ISBN 1857982053)

Space Cops

  1. Mindblast (1991) (ISBN 0380758520)
  2. Kill Station (1992) (ISBN 0380758547)
  3. High Moon (1992) (ISBN 0380758555)

X-Com

  • UFO Defense (1995) (ISBN 0761502351)

X-Men

  • Empire's End (1995) (ISBN 0761502351)

Net Force

Co-authopred with Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik

  • Book 1: Virtual Vandals
  • Book 3: One Is the Loneliest Number
  • Book 6: End Game
  • Book 10: Safe House
  • Book 13: Deathworld
  • Book 16: Runaways
  • Book 18: Death Match

Short Stories

  • Parting Gifts
Flashing Swords! #5: Demons and Daggers (1981)

  • Lior and the Sea
Moonsinger's Friends (1986)

  • Apparitions
The Further Adventures of Superman (1993)

  • The Dovrefell Cat
Xanadu 2 (1995)

  • Don't Put That in Your Mouth, You Don't Know Where It's Been
Don't Forget Your Space Suit, Dear (1996)

  • Recensions
Amazing Magazine (1998)

  • Blank Check
On Crusade: More Tales of the Knights Templar (1998)

  • 1-900-nodream
Perchance to Dream (2000)

  • Night Whispers (Star Trek)
Star Trek: Enterprise Logs (2000)

Other prose works

Duane has recently made available in various e-formats a previously unpublished book which was sold to at least two European publishers, but never actually brought out due to internal restructuring at one publishing house (Corgi) and the sale of another (Heyne Verlag). The novel, A Wind from the South, is the first of a projected trilogy telling the story of a young girl born in the 11th century in a remote region of the Alps. This girl slowly discovers that she is the intended physical avatar of an exiled Roman goddess, while (as she grows) she becomes caught up in the political turmoil of the beginning of the medieval era in central Europe, especially Switzerland.

Duane was also responsible for a novelization of UFO Defense, and for prose adaptations of several scripts from The Outer Limits. She has also written numerous short stories, about equally divided between fantasy and science fiction, which have appeared in various anthologies and collections over the last twenty years.

Screen works: film and television

Duane has worked in television since the early 1980's, initially becoming involved in script work at the Hanna-Barbera animation studio (now Cartoon Network). After writing numerous scripts for such series as Scooby and Scrappy-Doo, Captain Caveman, Space Stars, Fonz and the Happy Days Gang, Biskitts, and Laverne and Shirley in the Army, she moved on to work in development and serve as a staff writer at Filmation, and in 1985 was hired to story-edit the DiC animated series Dinosaucers. During this period she also wrote scripts for Sunbow Productions (GloFriends, Transformers, and My Little Pony) and Walt Disney Productions (Duck Tales). In 1986, she co-wrote (with Michael Reaves) the script of one of the earliest episodes of The Next Generation, "Where No One Has Gone Before".

In the early 1990's Duane was brought on board as the head writer on the BBC Television educational series "Science Challenge". Shortly thereafter she co-wrote (with her husband) scripts for Warner Bros. Television's The Animated Series and for Walt Disney's Gargoyles. She also wrote the screenplay for the 1996 space adventure game Privateer 2 - The Darkening, which starred Clive Owen, Christopher Walken, Jürgen Prochnow and Mathilda May. Other screen work from that period includes the screenplay for the Space Island One episode "Not In My Back Yard" (1998-1999).

In 2003, after doing nearly four years' development work with the production company Tandem Communications of Munich, Germany, Duane and Peter Morwood co-wrote the script for the German TV miniseries Die Nibelungen. The miniseries aired in Germany on the Sat.1 network in late November 2004, and a feature version (titled Sword of Xanten) screened in the UK in December 2004. A "megafeature" cut of the entire miniseries was aired on Channel Four television in the UK in December 2005. The miniseries aired on the Sci-Fi Channel in the US in late March of 2006 under the title The Dragon King. The miniseries has also been released on DVD in the US and numerous other markets, under various titles (the previous US title was Curse of the Ring).

Awards

  • "Midnight Snack": Cassette version winner of a Media and Methods Award for Excellence, 1987.
  • The Door Into Fire: Two-time John W. Campbell Award nominee for best new writer.
  • "Young Wizards" series: special commendation in the Anne Spencer Lindbergh Prize in Children's Literature, 2003.
  • Wizard's Dilemma: Mythopoeic award nominee, 2002.
  • Wizards at War: Mythopoeic award nominee, 2006.

External links

1952 births | Living people | American bloggers | American children's writers | American fantasy writers | American nurses | American science fiction writers | Star Trek script writers

Diane Duane

 

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