Barry B. Longyear


Barry Brookes Longyear was an American science fiction author who resided in New Sharon, Maine.

Life and career

Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on May 12, 1942, Longyear was known best for his 1979 Hugo- and Nebula Award–winning novella "Enemy Mine", which was subsequently made into a movie of the same name. The story is of an encounter between a human and an alien soldier whose races are at war. They are marooned together in space and have to overcome their mutual distrust in order to cooperate and survive. A greatly expanded version of the original novella as well as two novels completing the trilogy, The Tomorrow Testament and The Last Enemy, are gathered with additional materials into The Enemy Papers.
The novella helped Longyear to win the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1980. He was the only writer to win the Hugo, Nebula, and Campbell awards in the same year until this was matched by Rebecca Roanhorse in 2018.
He also wrote the series Circus World and Infinity Hold, several stand-alone novels, numerous short stories, and two books for the Alien Nation novelization series. His trilogy "Infinity Hold", "Kill All the Lawyers", and "Keep the Law", was released in 2002 in a single paperback volume titled Infinity Hold 3. His Jaggers & Shad mystery stories, featuring two detectives in the Artificial Beings Crimes Division, are set mostly in Exeter and the surrounding Devon countryside and villages. The first of the stories, The Good Kill, won Analog magazine's AnLab award for Best Novella in 2006, and Murder in Parliament Street won the same award for 2007. The Hook won the 2021 Prometheus Award for the year's best work of libertarian science fiction.
The series Circus World chronicles the adventures of a space-going circus troupe whose spaceship crashes, marooning them on a deserted planet without contact with the outside world.
The series Infinity Hold concerns a society developing from a group of violent convicts dumped on a new planet without police or government.
Saint Mary Blue centers around the course of treatment for a man with substance abuse and mental health problems, while resident in a treatment facility.
The God Box is a stand-alone secondary world fantasy novel in which the protagonist finds himself the keeper of a small wooden box that provides cryptic guidance from the gods.
Longyear also wrote a mystery series, The Hangman's Son trilogy and Rope Paper Scissors, featuring detective Joe Torio.
Longyear died on May 6, 2025, at the age of 82.

Published works

Stand-alone novels

  1. "Enemy Mine"
  2. The Tomorrow Testament
  3. ''The Last Enemy''

    Omnibus

  1. Infinity Hold,
  2. Kill All the Lawyers
  3. Keep the Law
  1. Circus World
  2. City of Baraboo
  3. ''Elephant Song''

    Joe Torio mysteries

  • The Hangman's Son
  • Just Enough Rope
  • Rope
  • Paper
  • ''Scissors''

    The War Whisperer

  • The War Whisperer: Book 1: Geronimo
  • The War Whisperer: Book 2: Black
  • The War Whisperer: Book 3: Misty
  • The War Whisperer: Book 4: The RAT
  • The War Whisperer: Book 5: The Hook
  • The War Whisperer: Book 6: The Notice
  • ''The War Whisperer: Book 7: Changes''

    Recovery works

  • Saint Mary Blue, SteelDragon Press, 1988
  • Yesterday's Tomorrow: Recovery Meditations for Hard Cases, Hazelden, 1997
  • "The Monopoly Man"

    ''Alien Nation'' tie-in novels">Alien Nation (novel series)">''Alien Nation'' tie-in novels

  • The Change
  • ''Slag Like Me''

    Nonfiction

  • Science Fiction Writer's Workshop-I
  • The Write Stuff Online Writing Seminar
  • Alien Runes: Building and Using Your Personal Oracle
  • ''Vade Mecum for Alien Runes''

    Short story collections

  • Manifest Destiny
  • It Came from Schenectady
  • Dark Corners
  • ''The Fireteller Tales''