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Daley, Brian C

Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.

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(1947-1996) US author who concentrated for the most part on multi-volume sequences, beginning with the Science-Fantasy Coramonde series – The Doomfarers of Coramonde (1977) and The Starfollowers of Coramonde (1979) – which puts into an Alternate-History setting a tale of Magic, court politics and quest, starring a Vietnam veteran who helps his friend, the rightful ruler, fight off an evil sorcerer. Of slightly greater sf interest is the Alacrity FitzHugh sequence – Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds (1985), Jinx on a Terran Inheritance (1985) and Fall of the White Ship Avatar (1986) – whose hero, Alacrity, hurtles through sf adventures on a galactic scale. Though it was published posthumously, Daley drafted the GammaLAW Military SF sequence about an elite squad of hi-tech grunts on a water world, beginning with GammaLAW: Smoke on the Water (1998); his long-time collaborator, James Luceno edited the manuscript. Daley's best single novel was perhaps A Tapestry of Magics (1983), a fantasy whose central conceit – a tapestry which is also a magical singularity – recursively recruits into the tale, from various aeons and realities, characters both real and fictional, including some of Robert A Heinlein's, perhaps in acknowledgement of Heinlein's own Recursive later fiction.

Daley remains best known, however, for his highly competent and colourful Star Wars Ties, Han Solo at Stars' End (1979), Han Solo's Revenge (1979) and Han Solo and the Lost Legacy (1980), which admirably set out to infill Solo's pre-saga life, and which were assembled as Star Wars: The Han Solo Adventures (omni 1992; vt Classic Star Wars: The Han Solo Adventures 1995); plus a novelization of the original trilogy as presented on radio, beginning with Star Wars: The NPR Radio Dramatization (1994; vt Star Wars: The Original Radio Drama 1995). Other Ties include Tron (1982) (see Tron) and the two sequences of Robotech television Ties (see Mecha) with James Luceno, writing together as Jack McKinney: the first begins with Robotech #1: Genesis (1987), and ends with Robotech #21: Before the Invid Storm (1996); the second sequence, the Sentinels books, begins with The Sentinels #1: The Devil's Hand (1988), and ends with The Sentinels #5: Rubicon (1988); both sequences are concluded in Robotech: The End of the Circle (1990).

Luceno and Daley, both still writing as Jack McKinney, continued with some independent titles: Kaduna Memories (1990), about a detective in twenty-first-century Manhattan (see New York), and the Black Hole Travel Agency sequence, about the threatened use of Earth as an amusement park for Aliens, beginning with Event Horizon (1991) and ending with Hostile Takeover (1994). It could not be argued that Daley has much built upon the promise of his first books, but nor could it be said that he has ever given bad value. He turned what could have been journeyman work into a craft. [JC]

Brian Charles Daley

born Englewood, New Jersey: 22 December 1947

died Arnold, Maryland: 11 February 1996

works

series under his own name

Coramonde

Star Wars

Alacrity FitzHugh

GammaLAW

individual titles

  • Tron (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 1982) [tie to the movie: pb/Walt Disney Productions]
  • A Tapestry of Magics (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 1983) [pb/Lawrence Schwinger]

as Jack McKinney with James Luceno

series

Robotech

Robotech: The Sentinels

This subseries has also been numbered as the missing #13 to #18 in the main Robotech sequence above.

Black Hole Travel Agency

individual titles

  • Kaduna Memories (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 1990) [pb/David Schleinkofer]

links

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