Robert Lynn Asprin | |
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Asprin in 1993
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Born |
St. Johns, Michigan, US |
June 28, 1946
Died | May 22, 2008 New Orleans, Louisiana |
(aged 61)
Pen name | Bob Asprin |
Occupation | Fiction writer |
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | University of Michigan |
Period | 1977–2008 |
Genre | Science fiction, fantasy |
Robert Lynn Asprin (June 28, 1946 – May 22, 2008) was an American science fiction and fantasy author and active fan, best known for his humorous MythAdventures and Phule's Company series.
Robert Asprin was born in St. Johns, Michigan, and attended the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Michigan from 1964 through 1965. From 1965 through 1966 he served in the United States Army. He was married (twice) and had two children. He was active in science fiction fandom and in the early years of the Society for Creative Anachronism under the name "Yang the Nauseating", and co-founded the Great Dark Horde in 1971. He was also the founder and an influential member of the Dorsai Irregulars. In 1976, he was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation for The Capture, a cartoon slide show written by Asprin and drawn by Phil Foglio.
Asprin's first novel, The Cold Cash War, an expansion of an earlier short story of the same title, was published in 1977.
Over the next few years, he created and edited (with his then-wife, Lynn Abbey) the Thieves' World series of shared world anthologies, credited as the first project of its type. Soon after the series hit its stride, many of the authors produced novels and stories outside the anthologies, beginning with Beyond Sanctuary by Janet Morris, the first "authorized" Thieves World novel, published in 1985. Janet Morris and Chris Morris went on to produce two more authorized Thieves' World "Beyond" novels and a series of related novels about their immortalized character, Tempus, and the Sacred Band of Stepsons. A series of graphic novels followed in the mid-1980s, and several other authors, including Andrew J. Offutt and David Drake, published novels about their characters. In 2002, Lynn Abbey resurrected the series with the novel Sanctuary.