Julian May is an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
,
fantasyFantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
,
horrorHorror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
,
scienceScience is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
and children's writer who also uses several literary pseudonyms, best known for her
Saga of Pliocene ExileThe Saga of Pliocene Exile is a series of science / speculative fiction books by Julian May, first published in the early 1980s...
(
Saga of the Exiles in the
UKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
) and
Galactic Milieu SeriesThe Galactic Milieu Series of science fiction novels by Julian May is the sequel to her Saga of Pliocene Exile. It comprises four novels: Intervention, Jack the Bodiless, Diamond Mask and Magnificat...
books.
Julian May is an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
,
fantasyFantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
,
horrorHorror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
,
scienceScience is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
and children's writer who also uses several literary pseudonyms, best known for her
Saga of Pliocene ExileThe Saga of Pliocene Exile is a series of science / speculative fiction books by Julian May, first published in the early 1980s...
(
Saga of the Exiles in the
UKThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
) and
Galactic Milieu SeriesThe Galactic Milieu Series of science fiction novels by Julian May is the sequel to her Saga of Pliocene Exile. It comprises four novels: Intervention, Jack the Bodiless, Diamond Mask and Magnificat...
books.
Background and early career
Julian May grew up in
Elmwood Park, IllinoisElmwood Park is a village bordering the northwest side of the City of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The population was 25,405 at the 2000 census. The community has long maintained a large Italian-American population, with a more recent influx of Polish-American and Hispanic...
, a suburb of Chicago, the oldest of four children. Her parents were Matthew M. May (originally Majewski) and Julia Feilen May; as a child she was known as Judy May. She became involved in
science fiction fandomScience fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community or "fandom" of people actively interested in science fiction and fantasy and in contact with one another based upon that interest...
in her late teens, publishing the
fanzineA fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
Interim Newsletter for a time. She sold her first professional fiction, a
short storyA short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
called "Dune Roller", in 1950 to
John W. CampbellJohn Wood Campbell, Jr. was an influential figure in American science fiction. As editor of Astounding Science Fiction , from late 1937 until his death, he is generally credited with shaping the so-called Golden Age of Science Fiction.Isaac Asimov called Campbell "the most powerful force in...
's
Astounding Science Fiction; it appeared in 1951 accompanied by her original illustrations. She met her future husband,
Ted DiktyThaddeus Maxim Eugene Dikty was one of the earliest science fiction anthologists.He started the first "Best of the Year" anthologies, called The Best Science Fiction, which ran from 1949 until 1957. In 1953, he married writer Julian May, and in 1957 the two started an editorial service for...
, later that year at a convention in Ohio. May chaired the
Tenth World Science Fiction ConventionWorldcon, or more formally The World Science Fiction Convention, is a science fiction convention held each year since 1939 . It is the annual convention of the World Science Fiction Society...
in Chicago in 1952, and married Dikty in January, 1953. After selling one more short story, "Star of Wonder" (to Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1953), she dropped out of the science fiction field.
Period outside science fiction
May and Dikty had three children, the last of whom was born in 1958. Starting in 1954, May wrote thousands of science encyclopedia articles for Consolidated Book Publishers; after finishing that project, she wrote similar articles for two other encyclopedia publishers. In 1957 she and her husband founded a production and editorial service for small publishers, Publication Associates; the most notable projects May wrote and edited during this period include two episodes of the
Buck Rogers comic strip and a new Catholic catechism for Franciscan Herald Press, a publisher associated with the Order of Friars Minor. Between 1956 and 1981 she wrote more than 250 books for children and young adults, most non-fiction, under her own name and a variety of pseudonyms; the subjects included science, history, and short biographies of modern-day celebrities such as athletes and musical groups.
Her story "The Dune Roller", published under the name "Judy Dikty", was filmed in 1972 as
The Cremators.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068425/
Return to science fiction
Having moved to Oregon in the early 1970s, May began to get reacquainted with the world of fandom; in 1976, she attended
WesterconWestercon is a regional science fiction and fantasy convention founded in September 1948 by Walter J. "Doc" Dougherty of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society...
29 in Los Angeles, her first science-fiction convention in many years. She made an elaborate diamond-encrusted "space suit" for the convention's costume party, which started her thinking about what sort of character would wear such a suit. She soon began accumulating a folder of ideas for what would become the
Galactic Milieu SeriesThe Galactic Milieu Series of science fiction novels by Julian May is the sequel to her Saga of Pliocene Exile. It comprises four novels: Intervention, Jack the Bodiless, Diamond Mask and Magnificat...
, and in 1978 she began writing what would become the
Saga of Pliocene ExileThe Saga of Pliocene Exile is a series of science / speculative fiction books by Julian May, first published in the early 1980s...
. The first book in that series,
The Many-Colored Land, was published in 1981 by
Houghton MifflinHoughton Mifflin Harcourt is an educational and trade publisher in the United States. Headquartered in Boston's Back Bay, it publishes textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults.-History:The company was...
. In 1987, she continued the series with
Intervention, finally followed in 1992 (with a change in publisher) by the
Galactic Milieu SeriesThe Galactic Milieu Series of science fiction novels by Julian May is the sequel to her Saga of Pliocene Exile. It comprises four novels: Intervention, Jack the Bodiless, Diamond Mask and Magnificat...
:
Jack the Bodiless,
Diamond Mask and
Magnificat.
Non-fiction under the name Lee N. Falconer
- The Gazeteer of the Hyborian World of Conan, (Starmont House, June 1977). ISBN 0-916732-01-0.
The Saga of Pliocene ExileThe Saga of Pliocene Exile is a series of science / speculative fiction books by Julian May, first published in the early 1980s...
- The Many-Colored Land (Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is an educational and trade publisher in the United States. Headquartered in Boston's Back Bay, it publishes textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults.-History:The company was...
, 1981). ISBN 0-395-30230-7.
- The Golden Torc (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982). ISBN 0-395-31261-2.
- The Nonborn King (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983). ISBN 0-395-32211-1.
- The Adversary (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984). ISBN 0-395-34410-7.
The Galactic Milieu SeriesThe Galactic Milieu Series of science fiction novels by Julian May is the sequel to her Saga of Pliocene Exile. It comprises four novels: Intervention, Jack the Bodiless, Diamond Mask and Magnificat...
- Intervention: A Root Tale to the Galactic Milieu and a Vinculum between it and The Saga of Pliocene Exile (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987). ISBN 0-395-43782-2. (Released in the USA as two mass market paperbacks: Surveillance and Metaconcert. Released in the UK as a single volume)
- Surveillance (Intervention no. 1) as separate paperback from Metaconcert.
- Metaconcert (Intervention no. 2) as separate paperback from Surveillance (Del Rey, January 13, 1989). ISBN 0-345-35524-5.
- Jack the Bodiless (New York: Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...
, 1991). ISBN 0-679-40950-5.
- Diamond Mask (New York: Knopf, 1994). ISBN 0-679-43310-4.
- Magnificat (New York: Knopf, 1996). ISBN 0-679-44177-8.
Trillium
The
Trillium seriesThe Trillium series is a series of five fantasy novels by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Julian May, and Andre Norton set in the World of the Three Moons. The series title is unofficial and is used solely because every novel of the series had the word "trillium" in its title...
began as a three-way collaboration. After the first book, the three authors each continued the series on their own.
- Marion Zimmer Bradley
Marion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley was an American author of fantasy novels such as The Mists of Avalon and the Darkover series. Many critics have noted a feminist perspective in her writing. Her first child, David R...
, Julian May, and Andre NortonAndre Alice Norton, née Alice Mary Norton was an American science fiction and fantasy author under the noms de plume Andre Norton, Andrew North and Allen Weston...
, Black Trillium (New York: Doubleday, 1990). ISBN 0-385-26185-3.
- Blood Trillium (New York: Bantam
Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by Random House, the German media corporation subsidiary of Bertelsmann; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. Kramer, and Ian and Betty Ballantine...
, 1992). ISBN 0-553-08851-3.
- Sky Trillium (New York: Del Rey
Del Rey Books is a branch of Ballantine Books, which is owned by Random House and, in turn since 1998, by Bertelsmann AG. It is a separate imprint established in 1977 under the editorship of author Lester del Rey and his wife Judy-Lynn del Rey. It specializes in science fiction and fantasy...
, 1997). ISBN 0-345-38000-2.
The Rampart Worlds
- Perseus Spur (New York: Ballantine
Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...
, 1999). ISBN 0-345-39510-7. (First published 1998 in UK.)
- Orion Arm (New York: Ballantine, 1999). ISBN 0-345-39519-0.
- Sagittarius Whorl: An Adventure of the Rampart Worlds (New York: Ballantine, 2001). ISBN 0-345-39518-2.
Boreal Moon
- Conqueror's Moon (New York: Ace
Ace Books is the oldest active specialty publisher of science fiction and fantasy books. The company was founded in New York City in 1952 by Aaron A. Wyn, and began as a genre publisher of mysteries and westerns...
, 2004). ISBN 0-441-01132-2.
- Ironcrown Moon (New York: Ace
Ace Books is the oldest active specialty publisher of science fiction and fantasy books. The company was founded in New York City in 1952 by Aaron A. Wyn, and began as a genre publisher of mysteries and westerns...
, 2005). ISBN 0-441-01244-2.
- Sorcerer's Moon (New York: Ace
Ace Books is the oldest active specialty publisher of science fiction and fantasy books. The company was founded in New York City in 1952 by Aaron A. Wyn, and began as a genre publisher of mysteries and westerns...
, 2006). ISBN 0-441-01383-X.
Non-fiction under the name Julian May
- There's Adventure in Rockets (Popular Mechanics Press, 1958)
- There's Adventure in Electronics (Popular Mechanics Press, 1957)
- There's Adventure in Chemistry (1957)
- There's Adventure in Atomic Energy (1957)
Works under the name Ian Thorne
- The Blob (1982)
- The Deadly Mantis (1982)
- It Came from Outer Space (1982)
- Frankenstein Meets Wolfman (1981)
- Creature from the Black Lagoon (1981)
- The Mummy (1981)
- Frankenstein (1977)
- Dracula (1977)
- The Wolf Man (1977)