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McConchie, Lyn

Entry updated 7 August 2023. Tagged: Author.

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(1946-    ) New Zealand author and farmer long active in Fandom, who began to publish professionally with "The Sar Shan Kelpie" in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy for Winter 1991 and has since been prolific in short fiction. Her first novel-length work was a Tie to Andre Norton's Witch World franchise, The Key of the Keplian (1994); this and its three successors – including The Duke's Ballad (2005), which won New Zealand's Sir Julius Vogel Award – were wholly conceived and written by McConchie though billed as collaborations with Norton. Contributions to Norton's Beast Master sequence are Beast Master's Ark (2002), Beast Master's Circus (2004) and Beast Master's Quest (2006). Of the first two, both Vogel winners, McConchie notes that although again marketed as collaborations, these were "written solely by Lyn from a brief collaborated outline"; this is presumably also true of the third.

McConchie's first non-tied novel was The Questing Road (2010), a portal fantasy somewhat in the Witch World vein and yet another Vogel Award winner. Of greater sf interest is Queen of Iron Years (2012) with Sharman Horwood, initially set in a Dystopian 2035 where a new disease exploits Transgender people as its vector, fatally for their sexual partners; the protagonist attempts to rewrite history by Time Travel to Iron Age Britain (61 CE) and the failed rebellion of Queen Boadicea, here regarded as a vital Jonbar Point; this too won a Vogel Award. Vestiges of Flames (2015) moves into Post-Holocaust territory as a global Pandemic eliminates 99% of humanity; the aftermath blends Survivalist Fiction issues with lesbian romance in a New Zealand setting. Bastet's Daughters (2017) is historical fantasy set in an Alternate History version of Ancient Egypt. Coals and Ash (2018) revisits the global background of Vestiges of Flames to tell a different story, this time located in Australia.

McConchie is a versatile author who has also written non-genre novels and picture-books for children [neither listed below]. A selection of her short sf is Tales from the Marrigan Trade House (coll 1998; exp vt Writers of the Future 1999). [DRL]

Lyn McConchie

born Auckland, New Zealand: 3 April 1946

works (selected)

series

Witch World (various subseries)

Beast Master

individual titles

collections

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