Killough, Lee
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1942- ) US author and Chief Technologist at the Department of Radiology, Kansas State University Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital. She began publishing sf with "Caveat Emptor" in Analog for May 1970, and until she began to focus primarily on novels around 1985 published about thirty stories, perhaps most notably the tales assembled as Aventine (coll of linked stories 1982), set in an artist's colony in a decadent future whose resemblance to that depicted in J G Ballard's Vermilion Sands (1971) led some critics to brand it as merely derivative, though others accepted it as a homage. Her first novel, A Voice Out of Ramah (1979) – set on a planet where 90 per cent of males are ritually slaughtered at puberty – is typical of much of her work in its plumping for unexceptionable presentations of various issues (Feminism in this case) while at the same time tending to stumble over the generic working-out of those presentations. The Brill and Maxwell sequence, comprising The Doppelgänger Gambit (1979), Spider Play (1986) and Dragon's Teeth (1990), is a police procedural set in an America wary of Computers; and the Garreth Mikaelian sequence, beginning with Blood Hunt (1987), combines police-procedural routines with a cop's difficult confrontation with the fact that he has become a Vampire. In both series there is a recurring sense that unexamined plots have tended to dominate proceedings.
Killough's later singletons are various. The Monitor, the Miners, and the Shree (1980) amiably deals with the issue of human exploitation of alien planets (see Colonization of Other Worlds). Deadly Silents (1981) again involves the police, though this time on another world. The Leopard's Daughter (1987) is a vibrant fantasy set in Africa. Her later work is horror and fantasy. [JC]
see also: Arts; Crime and Punishment; SETI.
Karen Lee Killough
born Syracuse, Kansas: 5 May 1942
works
series
Brill and Maxwell
- The Doppelgänger Gambit (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 1979) [Brill and Maxwell: pb/Michael Herring]
- Spider Play (New York: Popular Library, 1986) [Brill and Maxwell: pb/Michael Herring]
- Dragon's Teeth (New York: Popular Library, 1990) [Brill and Maxwell: pb/Michael Herring]
- Bridling Chaos (Decatur, Georgia: Meisha Merlin, 1998) [omni of the above three: pb/Michael Herring]
Garreth Mikaelian
- Blood Hunt (New York: Tor Horror, 1987) [Garreth Mikaelian: pb/Tom Galasinski]
- Bloodlinks (New York: Tor Horror, 1988) [Garreth Mikaelian: pb/]
- Bloodwalk (Decatur, Georgia: Meisha Merlin, 1997) [omni of the above two: pb/Kevin Murphy]
- Bloodgames (New York: Tor Horror, 1998) [Garreth Mikaelian: pb/Kevin Murphy]
individual titles
- A Voice Out of Ramah (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 1979) [pb/H R van Dongen]
- The Monitor, the Miners, and the Shree (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 1980) [pb/Wayne Barlowe]
- Deadly Silents (New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 1981) [pb/Michael Herring]
- Liberty's World (New York: DAW Books, 1985) [pb/Segrelles]
- The Leopard's Daughter (New York: Popular Library, 1987) [pb/Michael Herring]
- The Leopard's Daughter (Alma, Arkansas: Yard Dog Press, 2006) [exp as coll: pb/John Kaufmann]
- Wilding Nights (Decatur, Georgia: Meisha Merlin, 2002) [pb/Hoang Nguyen]
- Killer Karma (Decatur, Georgia: Meisha Merlin, 2005) [hb/Hoang Nguyen]
collections
links
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