Lam, Laura
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1988- ) US-born author, resident for some time in Scotland, much of whose early work has been fantasy, with explorations of Sex and gender couched cogently into adventure narratives; she also writes some nonfantastic work as by Laura Ambrose. Her first series, the Young Adult Micah Grey sequence beginning with Pantomime (2013), emplaces its intersex protagonist in a unspecifically Steampunk world, where she endures travails, joins a circus, engages in Magic, and moves into a larger world (see Politics) where she effects changes. The Pacifica sequence comprising False Hearts (2016) and Shattered Minds (2017) is set in a Cyberpunk-infused congested Near Future San Francisco (see California), where legal experiments in Drugs known as Verge and Zeal have damagingly transformed the lives of participants, including the protagonists, conjoined twins but separated as adolescents. The series moves steadily into West Coast urban noir, and deepens.
The Seven Devils sequence, beginning with Seven Devils (2020) with Elizabeth May, is an expansive Space Opera in which the galaxy is under threat from a ruthless Galactic Empire; the two main protagonists, and the specially-abled confederates they recruit [for Seven Samurai see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below] undertake to defeat the foe.
The narrative structure of Lam's only singleton, Goldilocks (2020), resembles that of Seven Devils, with a team of women in a Starship who must surmount obstacles; but the engendering backstory – a Near Future Earth afflicted by Climate Change, where women's lives are increasingly constricted by fundamentalist governments – gives the tale some added edge. [JC]
Laura Lam
born California: 4 August 1988
works
series
Micah Grey
- Pantomime (London: Angry Robot/Strange Chemistry, 2013) [Micah Grey: pb/Tom Bagshaw]
- Shadowplay (London: Angry Robot/Strange Chemistry, 2013) [Micah Grey: pb/Tom Bagshaw]
- Masquerade (London: Pan Books, 2017) [Micah Grey: pb/]
Pacifica
- False Hearts (New York: Tor, 2016) [Pacifica: hb/]
- Shattered Minds (London: Macmillan, 2017) [Pacifica: hb/]
Seven Devils
- Seven Devils (New York: DAW Books, 2020) with Elizabeth May [Seven Devils: hb/Daniel Dos Santos]
- Seven Mercies (New York: DAW Books, 2021) with Elizabeth May [Seven Devils: hb/Daniel Dos Santos]
individual titles
- Goldilocks (New York: Orbit, 2020) [hb/Yeti Lambregts and Shutterstock]
links
- Laura Lam
- Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- The Encyclopedia of Fantasy: Seven Samurai
- Picture Gallery
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