Барбара Хэмбли: Американдық жазушы және сценарист

American novelist and screenwriter (born 1951)
the American author

Barbara Hambly (born August 28, 1951) is an American novelist and screenwriter within the genres of fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and historical fiction. She is the author of the bestselling Benjamin January mystery series featuring a free man of color, a musician and physician, in New Orleans in the antebellum years. She also wrote a novel about Mary Todd Lincoln. Her science fiction novels occur within an explicit multiverse, as well as within previously existing settings (notably as established by Star Trek and Star Wars).

Hambly was born in San Diego, California and grew up in Montclair, California. Her parents, Everett Edward Hambly Jr. and Florence Elizabeth (Moraski) Hambly, are from Fall River, Massachusetts; and Scranton, Pennsylvania (respectively). She has an older sister, Mary Ann Sanders, and a younger brother, Everett Edward Hambly, III. In her early teens, after reading J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, she affixed images of dragons to her bedroom door. She became interested in costumery from an early age, and has been a long time participant in Society for Creative Anachronism activities. In the mid 1960s, the Hambly family spent a year in Australia. Hambly has a Master's in Medieval History from the University of California, Riverside. She completed her degree in 1975 and spent a year in Bordeaux as part of her studies.

She chose work that allowed her time to write; all of her novels contain a biography paragraph with a litany of jobs: high school teacher, model, waitress, technical editor, all night liquor store clerk, and Shotokan karate instructor. Her first published novel was The Time of the Dark (1982). Hambly served as President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America from 1994 to 1996. Her works have been nominated for many awards in the fantasy and horror fiction categories, winning a Locus Award for Best Horror Novel Those Who Hunt the Night (1989) (released in the UK as Immortal Blood) and the Lord Ruthven Award for fiction for its sequel, Traveling with the Dead (1996).

Hambly was married for some years to George Alec Effinger, a science fiction writer. He died in 2002. She lives in Los Angeles. Hambly speaks freely of suffering from seasonal affective disorder, which was undiagnosed for some time.

Hambly's work has several themes. She has a penchant for unusual characters within the fantasy genre, such as the menopausal witch and reluctant scholar lord in the Winterlands trilogy, or the philologist secret service agent in the vampire novels. Her writing is filled with rich descriptions and characters whose actions bear consequences for both their lives and relationships, suffusing her series with a sense of loss and regret. Hambly's characters suffer the pain of frustrated aspirations to a degree that is uncommon in most fantasy novels. Though using many standard clichés and plot devices of the fantasy genre, her works explore the ethical implications of the consequences of these devices, and what their effect is for the characters, were they real people. In avoiding the " easy consolatory self identification of genre fantasy"

"Libre" (2006, short story in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, November 2006, Salute to New Orleans issue. Available on Hambly's website.) "There Shall Your Heart Be Also" (2007, short story in New Orleans Noir, ed. Julie Smith. Available on Hambly's website.) "A Time to Every Purpose Under Heaven" (2010, short story starring Rose and Dominique, and taking place while Benjamin is away (plot of The Shirt on His Back). Available on Hambly's website.)

"The Adventure of the Antiquarian’s Niece" (2003, Shadows Over Baker Street, ed. Michael Reaves & John Pelan, narrated by Dr. Watson)
"The Dollmaker of Marigold Walk" (2003, My Sherlock Holmes, ed. Michael Kurlan, narrated by Mrs. Mary Watson)
"The Lost Boy" (2008, Gaslight Grimoire, ed. J. R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec, narrated by Mrs. Mary Watson)
"The Adventure of the Sinister Chinaman" (2010, Sherlock Holmes: Crossovers Casebook, ed. Howard Hopkins, narrated by Dr. Watson)