Daniel Abraham (author)


Daniel James Abraham, pen names M. L. N. Hanover and James S. A. Corey, is an American novelist, comic book writer, screenwriter, and television producer. He is best known as the author of The Long Price Quartet and The Dagger and the Coin fantasy series, and with Ty Franck, as the co-author of The Expanse series of science fiction novels, written under the joint pseudonym James S. A. Corey. The series has been adapted into the television series The Expanse, with both Abraham and Franck serving as writers and producers on the show.
Under the pseudonym M. L. N. Hanover, Abraham is the author of the Black Sun's Daughter urban fantasy series. With Franck, he wrote the Star Wars novel Honor Among Thieves, again as James S. A. Corey. Abraham collaborated with George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois to write the science fiction novel Hunter's Run. A frequent collaborator of Martin, Abraham has adapted several of Martin's novels into comic books and graphic novels, such as A Game of Thrones: The Graphic Novel, and has contributed to Martin's Wild Cards universe.
His short stories have appeared in numerous publications and anthologies, and have been collected in Leviathan Wept and Other Stories. Leviathan Wakes, book one of The Expanse, was nominated for the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Novel and the 2012 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. His novelette "Flat Diane" was nominated for the Nebula Award. His novelette "The Cambist and Lord Iron: a Fairytale of Economics" was nominated for the Hugo Award and the World Fantasy Award. Abraham is a graduate of Clarion West Writers Workshop 1998.

Career

Early work

In 1996, Abraham's first short story, "Mixing Rebecca", was published in The Silver Web #13. It was followed by several dozen short stories, novelettes, and novellas, published in anthologies, and magazines like Asimov's Science Fiction and Fantasy & Science Fiction. His novelette "Flat Diane" won the 2005 International Horror Guild Award and was nominated for the 2006 Nebula Award. His novelette "The Cambist and Lord Iron: a Fairytale of Economics" was nominated for the 2008 Hugo Award and the 2008 World Fantasy Award.

''Wild Cards''

Abraham made his first contribution to the Wild Cards shared world anthology universe in Deuces Down, published June 25, 2002, with his story "Father Henry’s Little Miracle". Abraham contributed the Johnathan Hive story-line to Inside Straight, published on January 21, 2008 by Tor Books as part of a new line of Wild Cards books edited by George R. R. Martin. He wrote the character Johnathan "Bugsy" Tipton-Clarke in Suicide Kings, released on December 22, 2009. A six-issue limited comic book series, Wild Cards: The Hard Call, was written by Abraham with art by Eric Battle. The series was initially published in 2008 by Dabel Brothers, and concluded in 2010 with Dynamite Entertainment taking over as publisher. In 2013 Tor.com published Abraham's new Wild Cards short story, "When We Were Heroes", edited by Martin.

''Hunter's Run''

In September 2007, Eos Books published the science fiction novel Hunter's Run, a collaboration between Abraham, George R. R. Martin, and Gardner Dozois. The story began as an untitled novella written by Dozois and submitted to Martin for critique in 1977. Years later, Dozois was suffering from writer's block and asked Martin to help him finish the story. In 2002, Martin and Dozois decided to bring in a third author to finish the novella, asking Abraham to overhaul the 20,000 word manuscript and write an ending. The resulting novella, "Shadow Twin", was released online on Sci Fiction in 2004, and later reprinted in Asimov's Science Fiction and published as a chapbook by Subterranean Press. The novel version was suggested by Martin, and retitled Hunter's Run to avoid confusion with the novella version. The writers "threw everything out" to write the novel, each doing passes on the manuscript, with Dozois putting the finishing touches to the novel.

''The Expanse''

In 2011, Abraham launched a new science fiction series, The Expanse, co-authored with Ty Franck under the joint pseudonym James S. A. Corey. The books are based on a role-playing game set up by Franck, who had developed a science fiction universe that spanned the solar system. After Franck moved to New Mexico and became part of the science fiction writing community, he set up several campaigns of the game, one including Abraham as player. Abraham, impressed by the amount of research and world-building Franck had done, asked to write a novel set in the game's universe. Franck agreed, deciding to split the proceeds of the book, with Abraham writing from Franck's outline and notes. After reading Abraham's first chapters, Franck decided to become more involved with the writing. The pair collaborate on the overarching plot, meeting weekly to outline chapters, with Abraham focusing on structure and prose, and Franck developing the story and world. They alternate chapters, writing for different characters each, with Abraham writing Miller, Melba, Avasarala, Bull, and Prax, then swap and rewrite the other's work. By the end of the process, Abraham has stated it would be hard to identify which line was written by which author.
The first book, Leviathan Wakes, was published by Orbit, Abraham's publishing house for his fantasy series The Dagger and the Coin, in June 2011. The novel was nominated for the Hugo Award in 2012, and received acclaim from the science fiction community. A prequel short story titled "The Butcher of Anderson Station", was published in October 2011, and provides background to one of the secondary characters of Leviathan Wakes.
Its sequel, Caliban's War, was published in June 2012. The novel expanded the number of point of view characters from two to four, which according to Abraham, allowed for more freedom to explore the characters' situations. The novel was followed by a novella, Gods of Risk, published in September 2012. The story takes place between the second and third books of the series, and is set in the same time period as the main novels but follows a separate story-line. A second prequel short story, "Drive", was published in the anthology Edge of Infinity in November 2012, set decades before the first novel.
The third book, Abaddon's Gate, was released in June 2013, and won the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. A second prequel novella, The Churn, was published in April 2014 and features the main series character Amos Burton.
The fourth book, Cibola Burn, was published in June 2014, the first novel in the series to be released in hardcover. The fifth book, Nemesis Games, was released in June 2015, and was praised by Andrew Liptak of io9 as "Corey's Empire Strikes Back." It was followed by the novella The Vital Abyss in October 2015.
The sixth book, Babylon's Ashes, was released in December 2016; and the seventh, Persepolis Rising, in December 2017. There are a total of nine novels and five novellas planned for the series, with the last book expected to be released in late 2019.

''A Game of Thrones'' graphic novels

Abraham adapted George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones, the first novel of A Song of Ice and Fire, into a comic book series. The 24-issue series featured art by Tommy Patterson and colors by Ivan Nunes, and was published by Dynamite Entertainment from September 21, 2011 to July 30, 2014. It was collected as four hardcover graphic novels by Bantam Books, the first volume featuring a preface by Martin. In 2014, Abraham stated that he would not be adapting A Clash of Kings.

''Honor Among Thieves''

In New York Comic Con 2013, Del Rey Books announced a new Star Wars novel by Abraham and Ty Franck, writing as James S. A. Corey. The book would be a standalone novel focusing on Han Solo, set between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. Honor Among Thieves was released on March 4, 2014, as the second installment of the Empire and Rebellion series. The writers watched A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back several times to capture Han Solo's voice while writing the book. A short story written by Corey titled "Silver and Scarlet" was included in the book as well as published in Star Wars Insider #148. A month after the novel was published, the Star Wars Expanded Universe was declared non-canon and renamed Star Wars Legends after the Disney acquisition of Lucasfilm, making Honor Among Thieves the last Expanded Universe publication.

''The Expanse'' television series

In September 2013 Alcon Television Group acquired the rights to the Expanse novels to be developed as a television series. Syfy gave a straight-to-series order for a 10-episode first season of the show in April 2014. The series premiered on demand on November 23, 2015, and on Syfy on December 14, 2015. The Expanse was developed by Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby, who wrote the pilot and serve as writers, executive producers, and showrunners alongside Naren Shankar. Writing for a second season commenced in May 2015, before the first season aired, and was officially ordered for in December 2015, with an increased order of 13 episodes. SyFy aired the second-season premiere on February 1, 2017. Abraham and Ty Franck, who write the novels under the joint pseudonym James S. A. Corey, serve as writers and producers on the show. They co-wrote the seventh episode, "Windmills".

Personal life

Abraham lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his wife Katherine Abraham and their daughter Scarlet.

Published works

''The Long Price Quartet''

Omnibus editions:
The Expanse space opera novels are written by Abraham and Ty Franck under the joint pseudonym James S. A. Corey.

Television

Selected accolades