Adrian Cole (writer)

Biography

Adrian Cole was born in Plymouth, Devonshire in 1949. Cole's father was in the Army, and Adrian spent three years with his family in Malaya when he was a young child, before settling back in Devon. He became interested in fantasy and science fiction at an early age, through Tarzan of the Apes, King Solomon's Mines, movies such as Earth versus the Flying Saucers and comics such as the original Classics Illustrated War of the Worlds, as well as the works of Algernon Blackwood, Lovecraft, and Dennis Wheatley.

He first read Lord of the Rings in the late 1960s while working in a public library in Birmingham, and was inspired by the book to write an epic entitled "The Barbarians," which was eventually revised into The Dream Lords trilogy, published by Zebra Books in the early 1970s. He began writing various ghost, horror, and fantasy tales, which he sold to various anthologies and magazines, and he had 4 novels published in England by Robert Hale. The novel Madness Emerging had a distinctly Lovecraftian flavour, set in a small Cornish village (based on one in which he had lived for 5 years) overrun by an alien force. He then had two "young adults" fantasy novels published in England, Moorstones and The Sleep of Giants, the first one set on Dartmoor, the second in the South West. A number of fantasy series followed, including The Omaran Saga and Star Requiem, as well as the novelizations of his stories about the Voidal, a S&S character and his elemental sidekick, Elfloq the Familiar. He edited a collection of Lin Carter's short stories about Thongor of Lemuria and the book, Young Thongor. His novel Night of the Heroes envisions various superheroes forming an unlikely union to battle an evil genius.

He has had short stories published in the Year's Best Fantasy series (DAW Books) and Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, and he was once nominated for the former Balrog Award. His story "Dark Destroyer" was included in the anthology Swords Against the Millennium. His first shared-world novel was The Crimson Talisman, which is set in the realm of Eberron.

Cole has worked as a librarian, an administrator in education, and Director of Resources in a large secondary college in the town of Bideford, North Devon, where he lives with his wife Judy, son Sam, and daughter Katia in an old blacksmith's forge.

Dream Lords

1. A Plague of Nightmares (1975)
2. Lord of Nightmares (1975)
3. Bane of Nightmares (1976)

Omaran Saga

1. A Place among the Fallen (1986)
2. Throne of Fools (1987)
3. The King of Light and Shadows (1988)
4. The Gods in Anger (1988)

Star Requiem

1. Mother of Storms (1989)
2. Thief of Dreams (1989)
3. Warlord of Heaven (1990)
4. Labyrinth of Worlds (1990)

The Voidal

1. Oblivion Hand (2001)
2. The Long Reach Of Night (2011)
3. The Sword Of Shadows (2011)

Novels