Vajra, Rajnar
Entry updated 3 June 2023. Tagged: Author.
Working name of David Rajnar Vajra-Loeb (1947-2023), US singer-songwriter, music tutor and author who began to publish work of genre interest with "Passing the Arboli Test" in Absolute Magnitude for Spring 1997; much of his short work, and his first two full-length tales, appeared in Analog. His debut novel, "Shootout at the Nokai Corral" (February-May 2003 Analog), is a Space Opera Western; it has not appeared in book form. The Near Future Doctor Alien (fixup 2022) features a psychiatrist asked by representatives of an Alien civilization, which has established a market-capitalist presence on Earth, for assistance in healing three aliens from other species who are failing to cope. His success off-planet, in the Starship where the sick beings have been sequestrated, leads him into a Fantastic Voyage to other worlds in a burgeoning galaxy.
Shortly before his unexpected death, Vajra published Opening Wonders (2023), intended as the first novel of the sequence Tales of the PanCosmos. In this Science and Sorcery adventure, a human observer visits the alien-governed "Crossroad World" where twelve universes meet, both science and magic are functional (the latter perhaps in the sense of the third of Clarke's Laws), and Gods and Demons abound; the protagonist's journey through the realms of Crossroad World is strong on Sense of Wonder but beset by Monsters sent against him by an unknown enemy. [JC/DRL]
David Rajnar Vajra-Loeb
born New York: 16 September 1947
died Amherst, New York: 16 May 2023
works
series
Tales of the PanCosmos
- Opening Wonders (Monument, Colorado: WordFire Press, 2023) [Tales of the PanCosmos: pb/]
individual titles
- "Shootout at the Nokai Corral" (February-May 2003 Analog) [mag/]
- Doctor Alien (Monument, Colorado: WordFire Press, 2022) [fixup: contents first appeared variously in Analog 2009-2012: hb/]
collections and stories
- Her Scales Shine Like Music (New York: Tor.com, 2016) [novelette: first appeared 3 August 2016 Tor.com: na/Jaime Jones]
links
previous versions of this entry