RJ Barker

2 universes Last reviewed 2026-08-27

R. J. Barker is a British fantasy author from Leeds, England, who turned to writing after years performing in a band, having described himself as never having been a very good musician. He served as a judge for the 2018 James White Award. He is best known for the Wounded Kingdom trilogy (2017-2018, comprising Age of Assassins, Blood of Assassins, and King of Assassins) and the Tide Child trilogy (2019-2021, comprising The Bone Ships, Call of the Bone Ships, and The Bone Ship's Wake), and won the 2020 British Fantasy Award for Best Novel for The Bone Ships, having previously been shortlisted for Age of Assassins in the Best Novel and Best Newcomer categories in 2018. He has also written the Forsaken trilogy, sold to Orbit Books in 2021, and the Wyrdwood series, whose first volume, Gods of the Wyrdwood, was added to the RUSA CODES Reading List in 2024. Barker lives with Crohn's disease and has written about incorporating disabled characters authentically into fantasy fiction based on his own experience.

Universe(s)

Books

• Age of Assassins (2017) · The Wounded Kingdom Core Canon
• Blood of Assassins (2017) · The Wounded Kingdom Core Canon
• King of Assassins (2018) · The Wounded Kingdom Core Canon
• The Bone Ships (2019) · The Tide Child Trilogy Core Canon
• Call of the Bone Ships (2020) · The Tide Child Trilogy Core Canon
• The Bone Ship's Wake (2021) · The Tide Child Trilogy Core 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: 6 books
• Award recognitions across all universes: 0 (None recorded)

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