Barbara Hambly

4 universes Last reviewed 2026-10-08

Barbara Hambly was born on August 28, 1951, in San Diego, California. She earned a master's degree in medieval history from the University of California, Riverside, completed in 1975, and spent a year studying in Bordeaux, France. To support her early writing career, she held a wide range of jobs, including high school teacher, model, waitress, technical editor, all-night liquor store clerk, and Shotokan karate instructor. She served as President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America from 1994 to 1996, and taught history and humanities as an adjunct assistant professor at Los Angeles Pierce College from 2006 to 2023. Hambly is remarkably prolific across genres, best known for the Benjamin January historical mystery series set in antebellum New Orleans, the Darwath fantasy trilogy, and the James Asher vampire novels, and she has also written tie-in fiction for both Star Trek and Star Wars. Her honors include a Locus Award for Best Horror Novel for Those Who Hunt the Night (1989) and the Lord Ruthven Award (1996) for Traveling with the Dead, alongside multiple further Locus Award nominations across her career. She was married to fellow science fiction author George Alec Effinger, who died in 2002, and lives in Los Angeles; her papers are archived at UC Riverside.

Universe(s)

Books

• The Time of the Dark (1982) · Darwath Core Canon
• The Armies of Daylight (1983) · Darwath Core Canon
• The Walls of Air (1983) · Darwath Core Canon
• The Ladies of Mandrigyn (1984) · Sun Wolf and Starhawk Core Canon
• Dragonsbane (1985) · Winterlands Core Canon
• The Silent Tower (1986) · Windrose Chronicles Core Canon
• The Witches of Wenshar (1987) · Sun Wolf and Starhawk Core Canon
• The Silicon Mage (1988) · Windrose Chronicles Core Canon
• The Dark Hand of Magic (1990) · Sun Wolf and Starhawk Core Canon
• Dog Wizard (1992) · Windrose Chronicles Core Canon
• Stranger at the Wedding (1994) · Windrose Chronicles Core Canon
• Mother of Winter (1996) · Darwath Expanded Canon
• Icefalcon's Quest (1998) · Darwath Expanded Canon
• Dragonshadow (1999) · Winterlands Expanded Canon
• Knight of the Demon Queen (2000) · Winterlands Expanded Canon
• Dragonstar (2002) · Winterlands Expanded Canon
• A Night With the Girls (2015) · Sun Wolf and Starhawk Expanded Canon
• Damselblossom (2015) · Winterlands Expanded Canon
• Fairest in the Land (2015) · Sun Wolf and Starhawk Expanded Canon
• Nanya of the Butterflies (2015) · Sun Wolf and Starhawk Expanded Canon
• Pretty Polly (2015) · Darwath Expanded Canon
• Whisper (2015) · Darwath Expanded Canon
• Elsewhere (2017) · Darwath Expanded Canon
• Hag in the Water (2017) · Winterlands Expanded Canon
• Hazard (2017) · Sun Wolf and Starhawk Expanded Canon
• Gwenael (2018) · Sun Wolf and Starhawk Expanded Canon

Aggregate across all universes

These are separate, unrelated universes; the totals below are plain sums of already-published per-universe facts, never a blended or averaged score across them. See each universe's own figures above.

• Total Core Canon books across all universes: 11 books
• Award recognitions across all universes: 4 (3 finalist mention, 1 nomination)

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