Jody Lynn Nye

Jody Lynn Nye (born 1957) is an American science fiction writer. She is the author or co-author of approximately forty published novels and more than 100 short stories. She has specialized in science fiction or fantasy action novels and humor. Her humorous series range from contemporary fantasy (The Magic Touch and Mythology 101) to military science fiction (Strong Arm Tactics and a new series beginning with View from the Imperium). About one-third of her novels are collaborations, either as a co-author or as the author of a sequel. She has been an instructor of the Fantasy Writing Workshop at Columbia College Chicago (2007) and she teaches the annual Science Fiction Writing Workshop at DragonCon.

Nye began collaborating with Robert Lynn Asprin on the MythAdventures series in 2003 with the publication of the collection Myth-told Tales and the novel Myth Alliances. Since Asprin's death in 2008 she has continued that humorous fantasy series and she is now also writing sequels to his Dragons, or Griffen McCandles, contemporary fantasy series.

In 2008 she donated her archive to the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University Libraries.

Career

Born 1957 in Chicago, Illinois, Nye says that she "always told stories" to her younger brothers, cousins, and friends, and as a junior camp counselor. Her first published writings were technical articles on broadcasting in the magazine "Video Action" during the 1980s. She first wrote fiction for the "Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine game" and the Role-Aids line of game supplements published by Mayfair Games.

Late in the eighties Nye wrote six companion books for the Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey and the Magic of Xanth series by Piers Anthony. The first four were "branching-path" gamebooks in the Crossroads Adventure series, two set on Pern and two in Xanth. Then simultaneously November 1989, Ballantine Books published The Dragonlover's Guide to Pern by Nye with McCaffrey and Avon Books published Piers Anthony's Visual Guide to Xanth by Nye and Anthony. Todd Cameron Hamilton and James Clouse were the illustrators for both Guides, as Hamilton had been for Roger Zelazny's Visual Guide to Amber published by Avon one year earlier.

For the Pern guide, Nye explained in its introduction, her team (without Clouse) had visited McCaffrey two years earlier, for ten days during October 1987. In the living room Nye, editor Bill Fawcett (Nye's husband), illustrator Hamilton, and McCaffrey's son Todd Johnson discussed Pern with its creator and Hamilton sketched under her direction. They produced "a companion volume to her work, intended to help you visualize the setting and background for her chronicles."

Before The Dragonlover's Guide was finished, McCaffrey and Nye were working together on a novel, presumably The Death of Sleep (1990) in the Planet Pirates trilogy. In the early 1990s they collaborated in three series based on McCaffrey stories from the 1960s and 1970s. Meanwhile, McCaffrey completed five more Pern books, after which they revised The Dragonlover's Guide.

Late in the 1990s Nye began work with Robert Asprin to extend the Myth Adventures series he had started in 1978. After his 2008 death she continued to write books they had planned. Meanwhile, three of Nye's book series were "adrift" since Meisha Merlin Publishing went out of business in 2007.

Among other projects, Nye is continuing to write the Myth Adventures series and her military SF/humor series begun with View from the Imperium (2011).

Works

Series

Mythology

Mythology 101 (1990)

Mythology Abroad (1991)

Higher Mythology (1993)

Advanced Mythology (2001)

Applied Mythology (2000) – omnibus edition of books 1–3

MythAdventures

Myth-told Tales (2003), by Robert Lynn Asprin and Nye

Myth Alliances (2003), Asprin and Nye

Myth-taken Identity (2004), Asprin and Nye

Class Dis-Mythed (2005), Asprin and Nye

Myth-Gotten Gains (2006), Asprin and Nye

Myth-Chief (2008), Asprin and Nye

Myth-Fortunes (2011), Asprin and Nye

Myth-Quoted (2012) (Advertised as Robert Asprin's Myth-Quoted but authored by Nye alone.)

Myth-Fits (2016) (Advertised as Robert Asprin's Myth-Fits but authored by Nye alone.)

Asprin alone wrote 12 novels in the MythAdventures series that were published from 1978 to 2002.

Imperium (or Lord Thomas Kinago)

View from the Imperium (2011)

Fortunes of the Imperium (September 2014)

Rhythm of the Imperium (November, 2015)

Dreamland

Waking in Dreamland (1998)

School of Light (1999)

The Grand Tour (2000)

Ireta (or Dinosaur Planet; or Planet Pirates)

The Death of Sleep (1990), by Anne McCaffrey and Nye

The Planet Pirates (1993), McCaffrey, Elizabeth Moon and Nye – omnibus edition of the 3-volume subseries

McCaffrey alone wrote two Dinosaur Planet novels that were published in 1978 and 1984. She and Elizabeth Moon inaugurated the Planet Pirates subseries in a novel that was published a few months before McCaffrey and Nye's.

Doona

Crisis on Doona (1992), McCaffrey and Nye

Treaty at Doona (1994), McCaffrey and Nye; also titled Treaty Planet

McCaffrey alone wrote one Doona novel that was published in 1969.

Taylor's Ark

Taylor's Ark (1993)

Medicine Show (1994)

The Lady and the Tiger (2003)

The Ship Who Sang (or Brain and Brawn Ship)

The Ship Who Won (1994), McCaffrey and Nye

The Ship Errant (1996)

The Ship Who Saved the Worlds (2003), McCaffrey and Nye – omnibus comprising The Ship who Won and The Ship Errant

McCaffrey alone wrote The Ship Who Sang, a collection published in 1969. She wrote three Ship novels in collaboration with three different women that were published in 1992 and 1993.

Dragons, or Griffen McCandles

Dragons Deal (2010), by Robert Lynn Asprin and Nye

Dragons Run (2013)

Asprin alone wrote two novels in the Griffen McCandles series, published 2008 and 2009.

Crossroads Adventure game books (copyright Bill Fawcett and Associates)

Dragonharper (Tor Books, Aug 1987), illus. Todd Cameron Hamilton – set in the world of Pern

Encyclopedia of Xanth (1987) – set in the world of Xanth