Barbara Hambly (b. 1951) is a New York Times bestselling author of fantasy and science fiction, as well as historical novels set in the nineteenth century.
Born in San Diego and raised in the Los Angeles suburb of Montclair, Hambly attended college at the University of California, Riverside, where she majored in medieval history, earning a master’s degree in the subject in 1975. Inspired by her childhood love of fantasy classics such as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and The Lord of the Rings, she decided to pursue writing as soon as she finished school. Her road was not so direct, however, and she spent time waitressing, modeling, working at a liquor store, and teaching karate before selling her first novel, Time of the Dark, in 1982. That was the birth of her Darwath series, which she expanded on in four more novels over the next two decades. More than simple sword-and-sorcery novels, they tell the story of nightmares come to life to terrorize the world. The series helped to establish Hambly’s reputation as an author of intelligent fantasy fiction.
Since the early 1980s, when she made her living writing scripts for Saturday morning cartoons such as Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors and He-Man, Hambly has published dozens of books in several different series. Besides fantasy novels such as 1985’s Dragonsbane, which she has called one of her favorite books, she has used her background in history to craft gripping historical fiction.
The inventor of many different fantasy universes, including those featured in the Windrose Chronicles, Sun Wolf and Starhawk series, and Sun-Cross novels, Hambly has also worked in universes created by others. In the 1990s she wrote two well-received Star Wars novels, including the New York Times bestseller Children of the Jedi, while in the eighties she dabbled in the world of Star Trek, producing several novels for that series.
In 1999 she published A Free Man of Color, the first Benjamin January novel. That mystery and its eight sequels follow a brilliant African-American surgeon who moves from Paris to New Orleans in the 1830s, where he must use his wits to navigate the prejudice and death that lurk around every corner of antebellum Louisiana. Hambly ventured into straight historical fiction with The Emancipator's Wife, a nuanced look at the private life of Mary Todd Lincoln, which was a finalist for the 2005 Michael Shaara Prize for Civil War writing.
From 1994 to 1996 Hambly was the president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. Her James Asher vampire series won the Locus Award for best horror novel in 1989 and the Lord Ruthven Award in 1996. She lives in Los Angeles with an assortment of cats and dogs.
Hambly with her parents and older sister in San Diego, California, in September 1951.
Hambly (right) with her mother, sister, and brother in 1955. For three years, the family lived in this thirty-foot trailer at China Lake, California, a Marine Base in the middle of the Mojave Desert.
Hambly (left), at the age of nine, with her brother and sister on Christmas in 1960.
Hambly’s graduation from high school, June 1969.
A self-portrait that Hambly drew while studying abroad in France in 1971.
Hambly dressed up for a Renaissance fair.
Hambly at an event for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. She served as the association’s president from 1994 to 1996.
The “official wedding picture” of Hambly and science-fiction writer George Alec Effinger, in 1998.
Hambly with her husband, George, in New Orleans around 1998. At the time, she was researching New Orleans cemeteries for her book Graveyard Dust (2002).
Hambly at her birthday party in 2005.
Hambly (right) with her sister, Mary, and brother, Eddy, at a family reunion in San Diego in 2009.