Mary H. Herbert

1 universe Last reviewed 2026-08-06

Mary H. Herbert is an American fantasy author born in 1957 in Ohio and raised in Troy, Ohio, where she showed early literary talent by winning first prize in her high school writing contest for a science-fiction and fantasy short story about an orbiting space station. She studied at the University of Montana and the University of Wyoming, and also attended the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Oxford, England, grounding her fiction in a strong sense of historical and mythological detail. Herbert made her publishing debut with Dark Horse (1990), the first installment of a fantasy series she continued through TSR Books, including Lightning's Daughter (1991), Valorian (1993), and City of the Sorcerers (1994), alongside contributions to the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms lines. Her novel Winged Magic (1996) further expanded her body of original fantasy fiction beyond shared-world settings. Herbert's Dark Horse series, centered on strong female protagonists navigating a richly realized steppe-inspired fantasy world, remains her best-known independent work, distinguishing her from many of her TSR-era peers who wrote primarily within established franchises. She resides in the Atlanta metropolitan area with her husband and two teenage children, continuing to be recognized within fantasy fandom for her contributions to 1990s genre fiction.

Universe(s)

Books

• Legacy of Steel (1998) · Dragonlance Expanded Canon
• The Clandestine Circle (2000) · Dragonlance Expanded Canon
• Dragon's Bluff (2001) · Dragonlance Expanded Canon
• City of the Lost (2003) · Dragonlance Expanded Canon
• Flight of the Fallen (2004) · Dragonlance Expanded Canon
• Return of the Exile (2005) · Dragonlance Expanded Canon

Aggregate across all universes

• Total Core Canon books across all universes: 17 books
• Award recognitions across all universes: 0 (None recorded)

← All authors