Kage Baker

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Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox writer Kage Baker (June 10, 1952<ref name="Biography">Template:Cite web</ref> – January 31, 2010<ref name=sfsite>"Obituary: Kage Baker Template:Webarchive", SF Site, January 31, 2010</ref>) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer.

Biography

Baker was born and raised in Hollywood, California, and lived in Pismo Beach later in life. Before becoming a professional writer she spent many years in theater, including teaching Elizabethan English as a second language.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Her unusual first name (pronounced like the word cage) is a combination of the names of her two grandmothers, Kate and Genevieve.Template:Citation needed Baker had Asperger syndrome.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

She is best known for her "the Company/Dr. Zeus, Inc." series of historical time travel science fiction.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Her first stories were published in Asimov's Science Fiction in 1997, and her first novel, In the Garden of Iden, by Hodder & Stoughton in the same year. Other notable works include Mendoza in Hollywood (novel, 2000) and "The Empress of Mars" (novella, 2003), which won the Theodore Sturgeon Award<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and was nominated for a Hugo Award.

In 2008, she donated her archive to the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University.<ref>Kage Baker Papers, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) Collection, Northern Illinois University</ref>

In 2009, her short story "Caverns of Mystery" and her novel House of the Stag were both nominated for World Fantasy Awards; neither piece won.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In January 2010, it was reported that Baker was seriously ill with cancer.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She died from uterine cancer on January 31, 2010, in Pismo Beach, California.<ref name=sfsite />

In 2010, Baker's The Women of Nell Gwynne's was nominated for a Hugo Award and a World Fantasy Award in the Best Novella categories.<ref name="2010nom1">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On May 15, 2010, that work was awarded the 2009 Nebula Award in the Best Novella category.<ref name="sfaw100515">Template:Cite news</ref>

Kage spent much of the last year of her life watching and reviewing silent films. Many of her reviews were collected posthumously into Ancient Rockets: Treasures and Trainwrecks of the Silent Screen (2011), edited by her sister Kathleen Bartholomew.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> From the foreword:

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Baker left an unfinished novel, Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea, which was completed by her sister Kathleen Bartholomew based on extensive notes left by Baker, and was published in 2012.<ref name="u4me">Template:Cite news</ref>

Bibliography

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The Company universe

Novels
Short story collections
Short stories and novellas
  • The Empress of Mars (2003) (novella version)
  • The Angel in the Darkness (limited edition chapbook, 2003)
  • Where the Golden Apples Grow (2006) (novella)
  • Rude Mechanicals (2007)
  • The Women of Nell Gwynne's (limited edition, 2009) (Also released as 'Nell Gwynne's Scarlet Spy')

Novels

The Anvil of the World
  • The Anvil of the World (2003)
  • The House of the Stag (2008) (Prequel to The Anvil of the World)
  • The Bird of the River (2010)

Short fiction

Collections
  • Mother Ægypt and Other Stories (2004) (title story takes place in the Company universe)
  • Dark Mondays (2006)
  • The Best of Kage Baker (2012) (includes stories set in and out of the Company universe)
Stories
Title Year First published Reprinted/collected Notes
Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key 2008 Novella
Pareidolia 2015 Template:Cite journal Novelette

Non-fiction

  • Ancient Rockets: Treasures and Trainwrecks of the Silent Screen, ed. Kathleen Bartholomew (2011) Tachyon Publications

References

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Further reading

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Template:Locus Award Best Novella Template:Nebula Award Best Novella Template:Authority control