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Carr, John F

Entry updated 15 September 2025. Tagged: Author.

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(1944-    ) US author who began publishing sf with The Ophidian Conspiracy (1976), an unpretentious Space Opera which demonstrated considerable imagination but a stylistic gaucheness; both characteristics mark his subsequent novels, Pain Gain (1977) and Carnifax Mardi Gras (extract February 1982 Fantasy Book as "Dance of the Dwarfs"; 1982), though the latter shows a saving exuberance. Memorial work on H Beam Piper – to the furtherance of whose posthumous career Carr has spent considerable energy – resulted in his editing The Worlds of H. Beam Piper (coll 1983) and writing several continuations in novel form of Piper's Paratime Police/Lord Kalvan sequence, beginning with Great King's War (1985) with Roland J Green, Kalvan Kingmaker (2000) and Siege of Tarr-Hostigos (2004) [for further titles see Checklist below].

From the beginning of the 1980s, most frequently in association with Jerry Pournelle, Carr has been most active as an editor. With Pournelle, he edited (not always with title-page credit) Black Holes, and Other Marvels (anth 1978); the Endless Frontier sequence, beginning with The Endless Frontier (anth 1979); The Survival of Freedom (anth 1981); the There Will Be War sequence of military Anthologies, beginning with There Will Be War (anth 1983) and ending with Vol IX: After Armageddon (anth 1990); The Science Fiction Yearbook (anth 1985) with Jim Baen and Pournelle; the Far Frontiers original anthology series, with Baen and Pournelle (Carr uncredited), beginning with Far Frontiers (anth 1985); and the Imperial Stars reprint anthologies, Imperial Stars, Vol 1: The Stars at War (anth 1986), Vol 2: Republic and Empire (anth 1987) and Vol 3: The Crash of Empire (anth 1989).

Also with Pournelle, Carr created and edited the War World sequence of Shared-World anthologies, whose first three volumes are: War World, Volume 1: The Burning Eye (anth 1988) with Roland J Green, Volume 2: Death's Head Rebellion (anth 1990) with Green, and Volume 3: Sauron Dominion (anth 1991) [for further titles see Checklist below]. Codominium: Revolt on War World (anth 1992) is set prior to the main sequence. These volumes, which carry Pournelle's CoDominium sequence into broader waters, have proved one of the more effective examples of a shared-world enterprise. The anthology sequence was augmented by novel-length contributions to the shared world, Carr's first being War World: The Battle of Sauron (2007) with Don Hawthorne.

As editor of the SFWA Bulletin (1978-1980), Carr devoted an entire issue (vol 14, #3) to a series of studies of "Science-Fiction Future Histories". [JC/DRL]

see also: Future War; History in SF.

John Francis Carr

born Germantown, Pennsylvania: 25 December 1944

works

series

Paratime Police/Lord Kalvan

CoDominium: War World

Paratime Police

  • Time Crime (Boalsburg, Pennsylvania: Pequod Press, 2010) with H Beam Piper [exp (adding part three) of Piper's original novella which first appeared February-March 1955 Astounding: Paratime Police: hb/Alan Gutierrez]
  • Paratime Trouble (Boalsburg, Pennsylvania: Pequod Press, 2017) [tie: Paratime Police: hb/Alan Gutierrez]

Terro-Human Future History: Federation

Terro-Human Future History: Fuzzies

individual titles

works as editor

Endless Frontier

There Will Be War

Far Frontiers

Imperial Stars

CoDominium: War World

CoDominium: War World Central

This reboot of the original War World anthology series resorts the material chronologically and adds new stories.

individual titles

nonfiction

works as editor

links

previous versions of this entry



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