Mary Gentle


Mary Rosalyn Gentle is a British science fiction and fantasy author.

Literary career

Mary Gentle's first published novel was Hawk in Silver, a young-adult fantasy. She came to prominence with the Orthe duology, which consists of Golden Witchbreed and Ancient Light.
The novels Rats and Gargoyles, The Architecture of Desire, and Left to His Own Devices, together with several short stories, form a loosely linked series. As with Michael Moorcock's series about his antihero Jerry Cornelius, Gentle's sequence retains some basic facts about her two protagonists Valentine and Casaubon while changing much else about them, including what world they inhabit. Several take place in an alternate history version of 17th century and later England, where a form of Renaissance Hermetic magic has taken over the role of science. Another, Left To His Own Devices, takes place in a cyberpunk-tinged version of our own near future. The sequence is informed by historically existing ideas about esotericism and alchemy and is rife with obscure allusions to real history and literature.
Grunts! is a grand guignol parody of mass-market high fantasy novels, with orcs as heroes, murderous halflings, and racist elves.
Gentle formed part of the Midnight Rose collective in the early 1990s.
Ash: A Secret History was a long science fantasy epic that won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 2000. Gentle has since published Ilario, set in the same timeline.
She has also written a number of erotic novels under the name Roxanne Morgan.

Stand-alone novels

  • A Hawk in Silver. London: Gollancz, 1977.
  • Grunts!. London: Bantam, 1992.
  • 1610: A Sundial in a Grave. London: Gollancz, 2003.
  • The Black Opera. San Francisco: Night Shade Books, 2012.

    Orthe">Orthe (series)">Orthe

  • Golden Witchbreed. London: Gollancz, 1984.
  • Ancient Light. London: Gollancz, 1987.
  • Orthe. London: Gollancz, 2002.

    White Crow

  • Rats and Gargoyles. London: Bantam, 1990.
  • The Architecture of Desire. London: Bantam, 1991.
  • Left to His Own Devices. London: Orbit, 1994.
  • White Crow. London: Gollancz, 2003.

    First History

  • Ash: A Secret History. London: Gollancz, 2000.
  • Ilario, A Story of the First History, released as 'Ilario: The Lion's Eye. London: Gollancz, 2006. and as Ilario: The Lion's Eye. New York: EOS, 2007. and 'Ilario: The Stone Golem. New York: EOS, 2007. in the US

    As Roxanne Morgan

  • Dares. London: X Libris, 1995.
  • Bets. London: X Libris, 1997.
  • A Game of Masks. London: X Libris, 1999.
  • Who Dares, Sins. London: X Libris, 1999.
  • Sinner Takes All. London: X Libris, 2000.
  • Degrees of Desire. London: X Libris, 2001.
  • Maximum Exposure. London: X Libris, 2004.

    Short fiction

Collections

  • Scholars and Soldiers London: Macdonald, 1989.
  • Left to His Own Devices. London: Orbit, 1994.
  • Cartomancy. London: Gollancz, 2004.
;Stories
TitleYearFirst publishedReprinted/collectedNotes
Under the penitence2004Novella

Critical studies and reviews of Gentle's work

;Lost Burgundy
;The wild machines
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