Paul Collins (fantasy Writer)

Paul Collins (born 21 May 1954) is an Australian writer and editor who specializes in science fiction and fantasy.

Collins has written many books for younger readers. He is best known for his fantasy series,
The Jelindel Chronicles
' (''Dragonlinks'', ''Dragonfang,'' ''Dragonsight'' and ''Wardragon''), and

' (''Swords of Quentaris'', ''Slaves of Quentaris'', ''Dragonlords of Quentaris'', Vampires of Quentaris, ''Princess of Shadows'', ''The Forgotten Prince'' and ''The Spell of Undoing''), and his science fiction series,
The Maximus Black Files
(Mole Hunt, Dyson's Drop'' and ''The Only Game in the Galaxy)''.

Paul's latest fantasy books, written in collaboration with Sean McMullen, are six titles in ''The Warlock's Child'' series: ''The Burning Sea, Dragonfall Mountain, The Iron Claw, Trial by Dragons, Voyage to Morticas'' and ''The Guardians'.''

In addition to his novels, Collins has written over a hundred chapter books, around thirty non-fiction hardcovers for the education market (published both in Australia and the USA), and 150 short stories, the best of which appeared in two collections. He co-edited four boxed sets of anthologies wit
Meredith Costain
(''Spinouts'' and ''Thrillogies''), edited around fifteen trade anthologies, and was the principal editor of ''The MUP Encyclopaedia of Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy''.

Biography

Paul Collins was born in England, raised in New Zealand and moved to Australia in 1972. His first published work was the Western novel ''Hot Lead-Cold Sweat'' (1975). That same year, in order to support himself so that he could write, Collins launched ''Void magazine'', the first professional science fiction magazine Australia had seen since the demise of the joint Australian and British production '' Vision Of Tomorrow''. Collins edited and published five issues of Void between August 1975 and March 1977, and while it only covered costs, the magazine was instrumental in encouraging lapsed writers Wynne Whiteford and Jack Wodhams to take up writing again, as well as encouraging a new generation of Australian science fiction writers and readers.

In 1978, Collins moved from magazine to book publishing, initially with the ''Worlds'' original anthology series, but later with a series of original Australian science fiction and fantasy novels. In 1981 Collins was joined by Rowena Cory (A.K.A. Cory Daniells) who painted many of the covers for their books, and Cory and Collins went on to publish fourteen Australian science fiction and fantasy novels by authors, such as Wynne Whiteford, A. Bertram Chandler, Jack Wodhams, Keith Taylor, Russell Blackford, and David Lake. With the posthumous publication of Chandler's novel ''The Wild Ones'', however, Collins decided that publishing was interfering with his own writing and he closed the business.

Collins pioneered the publishing of adult heroic fantasy in Australia and did much to raise the profile of Australian genre writing. Many of the books and stories he published have been republished overseas. He sold his first professional fantasy story in 1977 to the United States magazine Weirdbook, and by 1980 he had sold another eleven stories to magazines and books in Australia and overseas.

Collins has a black belt in both Taekwondo and jujitsu and was a kickboxer, experience he puts to good use in his recent, fast-paced cyber-oriented tales, which have culminated in the cyberpunk novel
Cyberskin
'. The latter has been published by clocktowerfiction.com (USA), Hybrid Publishers (Australia) and Heyne Verlag (Germany). His stories have sold to a wide variety of mainstream and genre magazines. The best of his work has been collected in ''The Government in Exile'', published by Melbourne's Sumeria Press in 1994. A later collection, ''Stalking Midnight'', has been published by cosmos.com in both POD and e-book.

Collins returned to editing in 1994 to compile ''Metaworlds'', an anthology of Australia's best recent science fiction, for Penguin Books published his children's fantasy novel ''The Wizard's Torment'', which was likened by Sophie Masson (Reading Time, May 1996) to the classic fantasies ''The Worm Ourobouros'' and ''The Well at the World's End''. It has since been selected by the New South Wales Department of Education and Training for their Bookshelf List, and extracts were published in ''School Magazine''. Meanwhile, Collins compiled the young adult anthology '' Dream Weavers'' for Penguin, the first original Australian heroic fantasy anthology ever. This was followed by a similar book called ''Fantastic Worlds'' and the ''Shivers'' series of children's horror novels from HarperCollins. Hodder published Paul's next anthology, ''Tales from the Wasteland'' in 2000. Collins has also written under the name Marilyn Fate, and he and Sean McMullen have both used the pseudonym Roger Wilcox.

Collins' recent output has been mostly for children. Certainly the success of his YA anthology, ''Dream Weavers'', and possibly its sequel, ''Fantastic Worlds'', has encouraged him to write and edit for younger readers. His young adult science fiction novel trade books, ''The Earthborn'' and ''The Skyborn'', were published by TOR in the States, and the third book in the trilogy, ''The Hiveborn'', was published by Bohemian Ink. His 100,000-word fantasy novels, ''Dragonlinks'', ''Dragonfang'' and ''Dragonsight'' were published by Penguin Australia

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