Jay Lake

Joseph Edward "Jay" Lake, Jr. (June 6, 1964 – June 1, 2014) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer. In 2003 he was a quarterly first-place winner in the Writers of the Future contest. In 2004 he won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in Science Fiction. He lived in Portland, Oregon, and worked as a product manager for a voice services company.

Lake's writings appeared in numerous publications, including ''Postscripts'', '' Interzone'', ''Strange Horizons'', ''Asimov's Science Fiction'', ''Nemonymous'', and the '' Mammoth Book of Best New Horror''. He was an editor for the "Polyphony" anthology series from Wheatland Press, and was also a contributor to ''The Internet Review of Science Fiction''.

Personal life

Lake was born in Taipei, Taiwan; he was the eldest of three children born to Joseph Edward Lake (a U.S. foreign service officer serving in Taiwan at the time). As a child he lived in Nigeria; Dahomey (now called Benin); Canada; Washington, DC; and returned to Taiwan for a number of years when his father was posted there a second time. He attended high school at Choate Rosemary Hall (in Connecticut) and later graduated from the University of Texas in 1986.

Lake publicly revealed his advanced case of colon cancer. He was diagnosed in April 2008, and it then "progressed from a single tumor to metastatic disease affecting the lung and liver, recurring after multiple surgeries and chemotherapy courses." He used crowd funding through YouCaring to pay for whole genome sequencing, towards the "small possibility that the results of such a test...may suggest a treatment path." Lake died of the illness on June 1, 2014, just five days before his 50th birthday.

Lake is the subject of a documentary called ''Lakeside – A Year With Jay Lake'' by Waterloo Productions. The film, which follows Lake's fight against cancer, had a special work-in-progress screening August 30, 2013, at the World Science Fiction Convention in San Antonio. , it is in post-production and is scheduled to premier at Sasquan in Spokane Washington during the 73rd World Science Fiction Convention on August 21, 2015.

His posthumously published collection ''Last Plane to Heaven'' was honored with the 2015 Endeavour Award.

Bibliography

The City Imperishable

* '' Trial of Flowers'' (October 2006) Night Shade Books ()
* '' Madness of Flowers'' (October 2009) Night Shade Books ()
* '' Reign of Flowers'' (forthcoming)

In addition to these three novels there are at least two more stories set in the City Imperishable:

* "The Soul Bottles" from the anthology ''Leviathan 4: Cities'' (ed. by Forrest Aguirre, Night Shade Books, Nov. 2004) is the first published story of The City Imperishable.
* "Promises: A Tale of the City Imperishable" (2008) in '' Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy'' (ed. Ekaterina Sedia)

''Mainspring'' universe

* ''Mainspring'' (June 2007) Tor Books ()
* ''Escapement'' (June 2008) Tor Books ()
* '' Pinion'' (March 2010) Tor Books
In addition to these three novels there are at least two more novellas set in the Mainspring Universe:
*
Chain of Fools
(Subterranean, Oct 2008) and
*
Chain of Stars
(Subterranean, Oct 2009), loose sequel to "Chain of Fools"

''Green'' universe

* ''Green'' (June 2009) Tor Books
* ''Endurance'' (November 2011)
* ''Kalimpura'' (January 2013)
In addition to these three novels there are at least two more stories set in the world of ''Green'':
*
A Water Matter
(Tor.com, 2008)
* "The Passion of Mother Vajpai" (with Shannon Page) in ''Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 2'' (ed. by William Schafer, 2011)

''Sunspin Universe''

* ''Calamity of So Long a Life'' (forthcoming)
* ''Their Currents Turn Awry'' (forthcoming)
* ''The Whips and Scorns of Time'' (forthcoming)
* ''All Our Sins Remembered'' (forthcoming)
* "To Raise a Mutiny Betwixt Ourselves" ( The New Space Opera 2, 2009, Harper Voyager)
*
Torquing Vacuum
(Clarkesworld Magazine, Feb 2010)
*

(Is Anybody Out There?, June 2010, DAW Books)
* "To This Their Late Escape" (The Sky That Wraps, August 2010, Subterranean Press)
*
A Long Walk Home
( Subterranean Online, Winter 2011)
*
The Weight of History, the Lightness of the Future
(Spring 2012, Subterranean Online)

Other novels

* '' Rocket Science'' (August 2005) Fairwood Press ()
* ''Death of a Starship'' (December 2009) MonkeyBrain Books (Sunspin Universe)
* ''The Specific Gravity of Grief'' (novella) (June 2010) Fairwood Press
* ''The Baby Killers'' (novella) (August 2010) PS Publishing