Barbara Hambly Books

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Barbara Hambly is a bestselling American author that writes science fiction and fantasy. Hambly was born in 1951 in San Diego California to Everett and Florence.

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The middle child among three siblings, Barbara read a lot when she was growing up. She was a teenager when she encountered The Lord of the Rings, a book that cemented her love for fantasy. As she matured, her interest in costumery manifested.

She went on to acquire a Masters Degree in Medieval History (University of California). However, she did not necessarily live the life of an established scholar. Hambly knew early on that she wanted to write fiction.

As such, she did a number of odd jobs. People that have read her books will tell you that most of them feature paragraphs in which she talks about her time as a waitress, a karate instructor, a model, and even a teacher to mention but few.

It isn’t that uncommon for aspiring writers to do odd jobs as they write. However, most aspiring writers tend to stumble into those odd jobs even as they struggle to identify where they belong and how much of their life they are willing to spend pursuing their publishing dreams.

In the case of Barbara Hambly, she already knew that she wanted to write for a living, and no one was going to tell her otherwise. So she purposefully chose jobs that would give her the time to write, which is why she meandered through so many careers before finally writing Time of the Dark, her first published novel.

Her hard work and determination paid off. Her bibliography includes dozens upon dozens of short stories and original novels. She has also written stories set in pre-existing franchises like Star Wars and Star Trek.

Barbara Hambly’s fans will tell you that her novels and short stories are not necessarily unique or original. In fact, she uses a lot of tired science fiction and fantasy tropes and clichés.

However, the author’s objective isn’t to pioneer new ideas. Rather, she tries to use the same old plot devices to tell new stories featuring some of the most unusual characters the genres of science fiction and fantasy have ever seen.

Her protagonists endure quite a bit of suffering. Hambly spends a lot of time exploring the ethical implications of every notable action her heroes and heroines take, the loss and regret they suffer as a result and the realistic conclusions their journeys meet.

Barbara Hambly Awards

Barbara Hambly took home the Locus Award for Those Who Hunt the Night in 1989. She won the Lord Ruthven Award for Traveling with the Dead. She has also received Locus Award nominations for installments in the Darwath, Sun Wolf and Starhawk, and the Winterlands’ series.

Best Barbara Hambly Books

Hambly’s fans love the fact that she has no interest in letting the desires of her readers guide the direction of her work, with some of the best books in her bibliography including:

The Time of the Dark: Gil Patterson is a Medieval History student who can’t get a good night’s sleep. Strange dreams keep assaulting her, the kinds that feature apocalyptic scenarios. And they all seem so vivid, especially those with the old man who not only sees her but goes so far as to speak to her.

At first, Gil is content to simply ignore these dreams. But then she wakes up one night to find the same old man from her dreams sitting in her kitchen.

The stranger in question is a wizard from another world and he needs Gil to help him save a special person from a dark force.

Dragonsbane: A black dragon has descended and only John Aversin can fight it. Aversin actually killed a dragon, the only living man to ever do so. Young Gareth knows that they cannot hope to free the Deep of Ylferdum from this new threat without him.

So he journeys to the Winterlands in the hopes of securing Aversin’s help. At first, Gareth thinks that his fortunes are turning. Not only does Aversin agree to help Gareth but they are joined on their quest by Jenny, the mother of Aversin’s children.

However, when they arrive at court, they are shocked to find that a sorceress has blanketed the King with an evil spell. It will take all the forces Gareth can muster to save his king and his people from the gathering dark.

When Does The Next Barbara Hambly book come out?

The next book by Barbara Hambly is Death in the Palace and will be released on March, 3rd 2026. It is the newest book in the Silver Screen Historical Mystery Series.

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