Michael Shea (author)
| Michael Shea | |
|---|---|
Michael Shea
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| Born |
July 3, 1946 Los Angeles, California |
| Died | February 16, 2014 (aged 67) |
| Occupation | Author |
| Nationality | American |
| Genre | Science fiction, fantasy, horror |
| Website | |
| www |
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Michael Shea (July 3, 1946 – February 16, 2014) was an American fantasy, horror, and science fiction author living in California. He has won "year's best" World Fantasy Awards for the novel Nifft the Lean and the novella Growlimb.
Shea was born to Irish parents in Los Angeles in 1946. There he frequented Venice Beach and the Baldwin Hills for their wildlife. He attended UCLA and Berkeley and hitch-hiked twice across the US and Canada. At a hotel in Juneau, Alaska, Shea chanced on a battered book from the lobby shelves, The Eyes of the Overworld by Jack Vance (1966). Four years later, after a brief first marriage and one year hitch-hiking through France and Spain, he wrote a novel in homage to Vance, who graciously declined to share the advance offered by DAW Books. It was Shea's first publication, A Quest for Simbilis (1974), and an authorized sequel to Vance's two Dying Earth books then extant. ISFDB notes that it "became non-canonic" in 1983 when Vance "continued ... The Eyes ... in a different direction."
Subsequently Shea ranged all over the L.A. Basin, painting houses and teaching ESL to adults by night. In 1978 he met his second wife, artist and author Lynn Cesar. They had two children: Adele and Jacob. Shea moved to the Bay Area where (prior to 1987) he held a variety of occupations, including instructor of languages, construction laborer, and night clerk in a Mission District flophouse."
In 1979 Shea published the story "The Angel of Death"(Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Aug 1979). This was followed in 1980 by "The Autopsy" (Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Dec 1980), a story nominated for both the Hugo Award and Nebula Award.
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