Michael Shea
Encyclopedia
Michael Shea is an American
fantasy, horror, and science fiction author living in California
. He is a multiple winner of the World Fantasy Award
.
He hitch-hiked twice across the US and Canada. At a hotel in Juneau, he chanced on a battered book from the lobby shelves: Cugel the Clever, by Jack Vance
.
Four years later, after a brief first marriage and a year spent hitch-hiking through France and Spain, he wrote an hommage to Jack Vance, for which Vance graciously declined to share the advance offered by DAW Books
. Shea's first novel, A Quest for Simbilis (1974), was an authorized sequel to Vance's The Eyes of the Overworld
.
Subsequently Shea ranged all over the L.A. Basin, painting houses and teaching Adult ESL 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.
Shea was quiet for a few years but re-emerged with the collection of four linked novellas Nifft the Lean (1982), where he showed he had developed the exotic style of Vance (perhaps influenced by Clark Ashton Smith
) plus the ingenuity of Fritz Leiber
's Gray Mouser stories to produce an extravagant quest novel. It received a World Fantasy Award
.
Shea followed up with The Color out of Time (1984), (an homage to H. P. Lovecraft
's "The Colour out of Space
" in which Shea only borrows the setting background, not attempting to pastiche Lovecraft's style); and In Yana, the Touch of Undying (1985), about a vain opportunist's search for immortality in a land of fable.
Polyphemus
(1987) is a collection of deft science fiction and horror stories published by Arkham House
, in which many of the stories were multiple Hugo Award
and Nebula Award
finalists. Some betray the possible stylistic influence of Stephen King
.
The Mines of Behemoth (1997), a fifth Nifft story originally serialised in Algis Budrys' Tomorrow Speculative Fiction
magazine, continues the adventures of Nifft, as does the novel The A'rak (2000). The Nifft stories, examples of the "sword-and-sorcery" genre
modeled on Jack Vance
, are notable for their imaginative depiction of the world of demon
s, and their blend of horror
, flowery diction, and occasionally crude humor.
Shea's work overlaps the science fiction and fantasy genres, e.g., demons and alien
s that act as endoparasites.
Shea's interest in Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos
has continued throughout his career. Copping Squid and Other Mythos Tales (2010) is a collection of such tales.
and Lord Dunsany, Clark Ashton Smith
's Zothique tales, as well as The Worm Ouroboros
; but what his work most reminds me of is David Lindsay
's A Voyage to Arcturus
, a book which had always struck me as being sui generis."
Novels by Shea as-yet-unsold include Cannyharme, Momma Durtt and The Plunderers.
Nebula Best Novella Finalist (1981) : The Autopsy
Hugo Best Novellette Finalist (1981) : The Autopsy
Hugo Award Finalist (1981): Polyphemus
World Fantasy Best Novel winner (1983) : Nifft the Lean
World Fantasy Best Collection Finalist (1988) : Polyphemus
World Fantasy Award (2005) Novella winner: The Growlimb.
International Horror Guild Award (2005) Finalist: The Growlimb
British Fantasy Society Award (2005) Finalist: The Growlimb
Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Awards (2005) Nominee: The Growlimb
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
fantasy, horror, and science fiction author living in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. He is a multiple winner of the World Fantasy Award
World Fantasy Award
The World Fantasy Awards are annual, international awards given to authors and artists who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the field of fantasy...
.
Life and work
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 BerkeleyUniversity of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
He hitch-hiked twice across the US and Canada. At a hotel in Juneau, he chanced on a battered book from the lobby shelves: Cugel the Clever, by Jack Vance
Jack Vance
John Holbrook Vance is an American mystery, fantasy and science fiction author. Most of his work has been published under the name Jack Vance. Vance has published 11 mysteries as John Holbrook Vance and 3 as Ellery Queen...
.
Four years later, after a brief first marriage and a year spent hitch-hiking through France and Spain, he wrote an hommage to Jack Vance, for which Vance graciously declined to share the advance offered by DAW Books
DAW Books
DAW Books is an American science fiction and fantasy publisher, founded by Donald A. Wollheim following his departure from Ace Books in 1971. The company therefore claims to be "the first publishing company ever devoted exclusively to science fiction and fantasy." The first DAW Book published was...
. Shea's first novel, A Quest for Simbilis (1974), was an authorized sequel to Vance's The Eyes of the Overworld
The Eyes of the Overworld
The Eyes of the Overworld is a fantasy fixup by Jack Vance published in 1966, the second in the Dying Earth series. It features a series of linked stories detailing the travails of the self-proclaimed Cugel the Clever...
.
Subsequently Shea ranged all over the L.A. Basin, painting houses and teaching Adult ESL 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.
Shea was quiet for a few years but re-emerged with the collection of four linked novellas Nifft the Lean (1982), where he showed he had developed the exotic style of Vance (perhaps influenced by Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith was a self-educated American poet, sculptor, painter and author of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Swinburne...
) plus the ingenuity of Fritz Leiber
Fritz Leiber
Fritz Reuter Leiber, Jr. was an American writer of fantasy, horror and science fiction. He was also a poet, actor in theatre and films, playwright, expert chess player and a champion fencer. Possibly his greatest chess accomplishment was winning clear first in the 1958 Santa Monica Open.. With...
's Gray Mouser stories to produce an extravagant quest novel. It received a World Fantasy Award
World Fantasy Award
The World Fantasy Awards are annual, international awards given to authors and artists who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the field of fantasy...
.
Shea followed up with The Color out of Time (1984), (an homage to H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
's "The Colour out of Space
The Colour Out of Space
"The Colour Out of Space" is a short story written by American fantasy author H. P. Lovecraft in March 1927. In the tale, an unnamed narrator pieces together the story of an area known by the locals as the "blasted heath" in the wild hills west of Arkham, Massachusetts...
" in which Shea only borrows the setting background, not attempting to pastiche Lovecraft's style); and In Yana, the Touch of Undying (1985), about a vain opportunist's search for immortality in a land of fable.
Polyphemus
Polyphemus (book)
Polyphemus is a collection of Science fiction, fantasy and horror stories by author Michael Shea. It was released in 1987 by Arkham House . It was published in an edition of 3,528 copies and was the author's first hardcover book...
(1987) is a collection of deft science fiction and horror stories published by Arkham House
Arkham House
Arkham House is a publishing house specializing in weird fiction founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to preserve in hardcover the best fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. The company's name is derived from Lovecraft's fictional New England city, Arkham. Arkham House...
, in which many of the stories were multiple Hugo Award
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
and Nebula Award
Nebula Award
The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
finalists. Some betray the possible stylistic influence of Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
.
The Mines of Behemoth (1997), a fifth Nifft story originally serialised in Algis Budrys' Tomorrow Speculative Fiction
Tomorrow Speculative Fiction
Tomorrow Speculative Fiction was a science fiction magazine from 1993 through 2000. Over this period, it had 24 bi-monthly issues as a print magazine from 1993 - 1997, then transitioned to become one of the first online science fiction publications until 2000, when it ceased publication...
magazine, continues the adventures of Nifft, as does the novel The A'rak (2000). The Nifft stories, examples of the "sword-and-sorcery" genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
modeled on Jack Vance
Jack Vance
John Holbrook Vance is an American mystery, fantasy and science fiction author. Most of his work has been published under the name Jack Vance. Vance has published 11 mysteries as John Holbrook Vance and 3 as Ellery Queen...
, are notable for their imaginative depiction of the world of demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
s, and their blend of horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
, flowery diction, and occasionally crude humor.
Shea's work overlaps the science fiction and fantasy genres, e.g., demons and alien
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
s that act as endoparasites.
Shea's interest in Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos
Cthulhu Mythos
The Cthulhu Mythos is a shared fictional universe, based on the work of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.The term was first coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent of Lovecraft, who used the name of the creature Cthulhu - a central figure in Lovecraft literature and the focus...
has continued throughout his career. Copping Squid and Other Mythos Tales (2010) is a collection of such tales.
Reception
Reviewing The Incomplete Nifft, Elizabeth Hand declared that "not even Bosch could capture the sheer, obsessive teemingness of Shea's world. . . . In their picaresque and unrelenting strangeness, Shea's tales evoke Jack VanceJack Vance
John Holbrook Vance is an American mystery, fantasy and science fiction author. Most of his work has been published under the name Jack Vance. Vance has published 11 mysteries as John Holbrook Vance and 3 as Ellery Queen...
and Lord Dunsany, Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith was a self-educated American poet, sculptor, painter and author of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Swinburne...
's Zothique tales, as well as The Worm Ouroboros
The Worm Ouroboros
The Worm Ouroboros is a heroic high fantasy novel by Eric Rücker Eddison, first published in 1922. The book describes the protracted war between the domineering King Gorice of Witchland and the Lords of Demonland in an imaginary world that appears mainly medieval and partly reminiscent of Norse sagas...
; but what his work most reminds me of is David Lindsay
David Lindsay
David Lindsay may refer to:*David Lyndsay , Scottish poet*David Lindsay *David Lindsay , also Bishop of Brechin*David Lindsay , Australian explorer...
's A Voyage to Arcturus
A Voyage to Arcturus
A Voyage to Arcturus is a novel by Scottish writer David Lindsay, first published in 1920. It combines fantasy, philosophy, and science fiction in an exploration of the nature of good and evil and their relationship with existence. It has been described by critic and philosopher Colin Wilson as the...
, a book which had always struck me as being sui generis."
Nifft
- Nifft the Lean (1982). There is also a limited edition (440 copies) reprint by Darkside Press (1994)
- The Mines of Behemoth (1997)
- The Incompleat Nifft (omnibus, 2000)
- The A'rak (2000)
Other novels
- The Color Out of Time (1984)
- In Yana, the Touch of Undying (1985)
- I, Said the Fly (1993). A limited edition of 300 copies from Silver Salamander Press.
- The Extra (2010). Based on Shea's original short story of the same title, this novel is intended as the first of a trilogy.
Novels by Shea as-yet-unsold include Cannyharme, Momma Durtt and The Plunderers.
Collections
- PolyphemusPolyphemus (book)Polyphemus is a collection of Science fiction, fantasy and horror stories by author Michael Shea. It was released in 1987 by Arkham House . It was published in an edition of 3,528 copies and was the author's first hardcover book...
(1987) - The Autopsy and Other Tales (2008) [This short story collection from Centipede Press also includes the complete Lovecraftian novel The Color Out of Time].
- Copping Squid and Other Mythos Tales (edited by S.T. Joshi) (Perilous Press, 2010)
Short stories
- "The Angel of Death" (1979)
- "The Autopsy" (1980)
- "Polyphemus" (1981)
- "Nemo Me Impune Lacessit" (1982)
- "That Frog" (1982)
- "The Horror on the #33" (1982)
- "The Fishing of the Demon-Sea" (1982)
- "Come Then, Mortal, We Will Seek Her Soul" (1982)
- "The Goddess in Glass" (1982)
- "The Pearls of the Vampire Queen" (1982)
- "Shag Margold's Eulogy of Nifft the Lean, His Dear Friend" (1982)
- "Grunt-12 Test Drive" (1983)
- "Creative Coverage, Inc." (1983)
- "Uncle Tuggs" (1986)
- "Fill It With Regular" (1986)
- "The Extra" (1987)
- "Fat Face" (1987)
- "Delivery" (1987)
- "I, Said the Fly" (1989)
- "Salome" (1994)
- "Tollbooth" (1995)
- "Johnny Crack" (1995)
- "Fast Food" (1995)
- "Piece A' Chain" (1996)
- "Water of Life" (1999)
- "For Every Tatter in Its Mortal Dress" (2000)
- "The Rebuke" (2002)
- "The Growlimb" (2004) (Winner of the World Fantasy AwardWorld Fantasy AwardThe World Fantasy Awards are annual, international awards given to authors and artists who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the field of fantasy...
2005 in the Novella category). - "The Pool" (2007)
- "Tsathoggua" (2008)
- "The Battery"
- "The Presentation"
- "Copping Squid"
- "Dagoniad"
Awards
Nebula Best Novellette Finalist (1980) : The Angel of DeathNebula Best Novella Finalist (1981) : The Autopsy
Hugo Best Novellette Finalist (1981) : The Autopsy
Hugo Award Finalist (1981): Polyphemus
World Fantasy Best Novel winner (1983) : Nifft the Lean
World Fantasy Best Collection Finalist (1988) : Polyphemus
World Fantasy Award (2005) Novella winner: The Growlimb.
International Horror Guild Award (2005) Finalist: The Growlimb
British Fantasy Society Award (2005) Finalist: The Growlimb
Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Awards (2005) Nominee: The Growlimb