Margaret Weis: A Literary-Biography

Authors

  • Will Slocombe University of Liverpool

Keywords:

literary biography

Abstract

Margaret Weis (b. 1948) is one of the popular fantasy authors of recent years in the USA. She has produced numerous works, both science fiction and fantasy, with a host of co-writers and by herself, and is also responsible for a role-playing game company. Throughout her career, which spans over thirty years, she has produced a significant proportion of bestsellers. Yet, despite this, she is possibly one of the least critically discussed authors of fantasy, in part because of a perception that her works are too populist, lacking literary merit, but perhaps because – in today’s post-Game of Thrones world – they are not actually popular enough. That said, the aim of this piece is not to critically analyze her works in any great detail, nor is it to seek to persuade readers of that amorphous quality of “literary merit”; rather, it is intended as an overview of her fiction to identify the scope and dominant themes of her writing. This is a “literary biography” in the sense that it works through her oeuvre and shows broad links between her works, in the hopes of prompting further research and explorations of her contribution to, and influence upon, the fantasy genre.

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Published

2016-10-10

Issue

Section

Literary Biographies