Yep, Laurence
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1948- ) US author who began publishing sf with "The Selchey Kids" for If in February 1968; one story, "In a Sky of Daemons" (in Protostars, anth 1971, ed David Gerrold and Stephen Goldin) appeared as by L Yep. Most of his books have been written for children or Young Adults, including the sf Sweetwater (1973) – his first novel, set in a dying city on a strange planet – and the highly successful Dragonwings (1975), a non-sf story about the lives of Chinese-Americans that won several awards in the field; Child of the Owl (1977), The Star Fisher (1991) and Dragon's Gate (1995) are also about Chinese-Americans in various eras of US history. His first fantasy series, the Shimmer and Thorn sequence – Dragon of the Lost Sea (1982), Dragon Steel (1985), Dragon Cauldron (1991) and Dragon War (1992) – as well as Monster Makers, Inc. (1986), which is about Genetic Engineering, were also for children; The Rainbow People (coll 1989) assembles juvenile stories rewritten from Chinese-American folktales. Throughout these books a melancholy sensitivity is generally permitted to discover material for quiet affirmation, and Yep's own Chinese-American background can be easily discerned, especially when Aliens are being treated. His memoir The Lost Garden (1991) directly relates the experience of growing up in 1950s San Francisco.
Yep's first adult sf novel, Seademons (1977), tells of colonists on another world and of their relation to the beings there (see Colonization of Other Worlds), evoking an atmosphere of strangeness in a nuanced prose. His second is a Star Trek tie, The Shadow Lord (1985). Further young-adult fantasy series are The Tiger's Apprentice, opening with The Tiger's Apprentice (2003), and the City Trilogy, opening with City of Fire (2009); the latter is set in an Alternate World where history took another course, World War Two failed to happen, and Magic works. [JC/DRL/PN]
Laurence Michael Yep
born San Francisco, California: 14 June 1948
works
series
Shimmer and Thorn
- Dragon of the Lost Sea (New York: Harper and Row, 1982) [Shimmer and Thorn: hb/David Wiesner]
- Dragon Steel (New York: Harper and Row, 1985) [Shimmer and Thorn: hb/David Wiesner]
- Dragon Cauldron (New York: HarperCollins Children's Books, 1991) [Shimmer and Thorn: hb/David Wiesner]
- Dragon War (New York: HarperCollins Children's Books, 1992) [Shimmer and Thorn: hb/David Wiesner]
The Tiger's Apprentice
- The Tiger's Apprentice (New York: HarperCollins, 2003) [The Tiger's Apprentice: hb/Winslow Pels]
- Tiger's Blood (New York: HarperCollins, 2005) [The Tiger's Apprentice: hb/Greg Call]
- Tiger Magic (New York: HarperCollins, 2006) [The Tiger's Apprentice: hb/Greg Call]
City Trilogy
- City of Fire (New York: Tor/Starscape, 2009) [City Trilogy: hb/Joshua Middleton]
- City of Ice (New York: Tor/Starscape, 2011) [City Trilogy: hb/John Rowe]
- City of Death (New York: Tor/Starscape, 2013) [City Trilogy: hb/Yuta Onoda]
Dragons
- A Dragon's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans (New York: Crown Books for Young Readers, 2015) with Joanne Ryder [hb/Mary GrandPré]
- A Dragon's Guide to Making Your Human Smarter (New York: Crown Books for Young Readers, 2016) with Joanne Ryder [illus/hb/Mary GrandPré]
- A Dragon's Guide to Making Perfect Wishes (New York: Crown Books for Young Readers, 2017) with Joanne Ryder [illus/hb/Mary GrandPré]
individual titles
- Sweetwater (New York: Harper and Row, 1973) [illus/hb/Julia Noonan]
- Dragonwings (New York: Harper and Row, 1975) [hb/]
- Child of the Owl (New York: Harper and Row, 1977) [hb/]
- Seademons (New York: Harper and Row, 1977) [hb/Frank Frazetta]
- The Shadow Lord (New York: Pocket Books, 1985) [tie to Star Trek: pb/Boris Vallejo]
- Monster Makers, Inc. (New York: Arbor House, 1986) [hb/Bob Walters]
- The Star Fisher (New York: Morrow Junior Books, 1991) [hb/]
- The Ghost Fox (New York: Scholastic, 1994) [chap: hb/Jean Tseng and Mou-Sien Tseng]
- Dragon's Gate (New York: Scholastic, 1995) [pb/]
- The Imp That Ate My Homework (New York: HarperCollins, 1998) [chap: hb/Benrei Huang]
- The Magic Paintbrush (New York: HarperCollins, 2000) [chap: hb/Suling Wang]
collections and stories
- The Rainbow People (New York: HarperCollins Children's Books, 1989) [coll: hb/]
- Tongues of Jade (New York: HarperCollins, 1991) [coll: hb/David Wiesner]
nonfiction
- The Lost Garden (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Simon and Schuster, 1991) [nonfiction: hb/]
links
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