Wren, M K
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1938-2016) US author who initially concentrated on mysteries, the Conan Flagg series being nonfantastic. Her Phoenix Legacy trilogy – Sword of the Lamb (1981), Shadow of the Swan (1981) and House of the Wolf (1981) – uses a carefully thought out Future History to justify an intricate plot which compounds together Space Opera, romance and political thriller elements, and which moves, with some awkwardness but more panache, from Planetary Romance complications in a Ruined Earth venue outward into a maturely conceived Space Opera universe. A Gift Upon the Shore (1990) is, perhaps, rather more sober, but more evenly sustained: an ambitious and eloquently written Post-Holocaust sf novel, set in the years after World War Three has created a Nuclear Winter along the Pacific Rim. In this harsh environment, two women seek to preserve knowledge – in the form of books – for future and more fortunate generations, in the face of destructive and attemptedly murderous enmity from the Religious zealots (Christian fundamentalists in this instance) who find heresy (including references to Evolution) in any book not the Bible, but with whom one of them must attempt to learn to live. [JC/JGr/JBe]
Martha Kay Renfroe
born Amarillo, Texas: 5 June 1938
died Lincoln City, Oregon: 20 August 2016
works
series
Phoenix Legacy
- Sword of the Lamb (New York: Berkley Books, 1981) [Phoenix Legacy: pb/Franco Accornero]
- Shadow of the Swan (New York: Berkley Books, 1981) [Phoenix Legacy: pb/Franco Accornero]
- House of the Wolf (New York: Berkley Books, 1981) [Phoenix Legacy: pb/Franco Accornero]
individual titles
- A Gift Upon the Shore (New York: Ballantine Books, 1990) [hb/Jeff Walker]
links
previous versions of this entry