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John Maddox Roberts

John Maddox Roberts (June 25, 1947 – May 23, 2024) was an American author of science fiction, fantasy, and historical fiction including the SPQR series and Hannibal's Children.

Personal life[edit]

John Maddox Roberts was born in Ohio and was raised in Texas, California, and New Mexico.^[2] He lived in various places in the United States as well as in Scotland, England and Mexico.^[3] He was kicked out of college in 1967 and joined the Army.^[2] He was in the US Army 1967–70, and did a tour in Vietnam. After he returned, he became a Green Beret.^[3]

He lived in Estancia, New Mexico with his wife Beth, who survived him.^[4][1]

Career[edit]

Upon his return to civilian life, Roberts decided to be a writer and sold his first book to Doubleday in 1975;^[2] his book was published in 1977 as The Strayed Sheep of Charum.^[5] His earlier books were in the science fiction, fantasy and historical genres.^[2]

In 1989, Roberts published his first historical mystery, The King's Gambit, set in ancient Rome. The book was nominated for the Edgar Award as best mystery of the year.^[5] The book was first in Maddox's SPQR series of mysteries.^[2]

Roberts also wrote a series of contemporary detective novels about a private eye named Gabe Treloar. The first book, A Typical American Town, is set in a fictionalized version of that Ohio town where he was born. The second, The Ghosts of Saigon, used his experiences in Vietnam. The third, Desperate Highways, is a road novel.^[2]

When asked by TSR to do a Dragonlance mystery, he wrote Murder in Tarsis.^[2] Roberts wrote an unpublished science fiction book called The Line, a police procedural set in a near-future Los Angeles where the biggest racket is illegal traffic in fetal pineal glands.^[2]

Bibliography[edit]

Cingulum series[edit]

• The Cingulum (1985)
• Cloak of Illusion (1985)
• The Sword, The Jewel, and The Mirror (1988)

Island Worlds series[edit]

• Act of God (1985) (with Eric Kotani)
• The Island Worlds (1987) (with Eric Kotani)
• Between The Stars (1988) (with Eric Kotani)
• Delta Pavonis (1990) (with Eric Kotani)

Conan series[edit]

• Conan the Valorous (1985)
• Conan the Champion (1987)
• Conan the Marauder (1988)
• Conan the Bold (1989)
• Conan the Rogue (1991)
• Conan and the Manhunters (1994)
• Conan and the Treasure of Python (1994)
• Conan and the Amazon (1995)

Dragonlance series[edit]

• Murder in Tarsis (1996)

Falcon Series[edit]

An action series telling the story of a Crusader returning to Europe to seek vengeance on his father's killers (each written under the pen name of Mark Ramsay)

• The Falcon Strikes
• The Black Pope
• The Bloody Cross (1982)
• The King's Treasure (1983)

Gabe Treloar series[edit]

• A Typical American Town (1994)
• Ghosts of Saigon (1996)
• Desperate Highways (1997)

Space Angel series[edit]

• Space Angel (1979)
• Spacer: Window of the Mind (1988)

SPQR series[edit]

Mystery series set in Ancient Rome

• SPQR (1990) (also SPQR I: The King's Gambit)
• The Catiline Conspiracy (1991)
• The Sacrilege (1992)
• The Temple of the Muses (1999)
• Saturnalia (1999)
• Nobody Loves A Centurion (2001)
• The Tribune's Curse (2003)
• The River God's Vengeance (2004)
• The Princess and the Pirates (2005)
• A Point of Law (2006)
• Under Vesuvius (2007)
• Oracle of the Dead (December 9, 2008)
• The Year of Confusion (February 16, 2010)

Stormlands series[edit]

• The Islander (1990)
• The Black Shields (1991)
• The Poisoned Lands (1992)
• The Steel Kings (1993)
• Queens of Land and Sea (1994)

Hannibal series[edit]

• Hannibal's Children (2002)
• The Seven Hills (2005)

Individual novels[edit]

• The Strayed Sheep of Charun (1977), expanded into Cestus Dei (1983)
• King of the Wood (1983)
• The Enigma Variations (1989)
• Legacy of Prometheus (2000)
• Total Recall 2070: Machine Dreams (2000)

Short stories[edit]

• "Mightier Than the Sword" (1993, SPQR series), in the historical mystery anthology The Mammoth Book of Historical Whodunnits, edited by Mike Ashley^[6]
• "The King of Sacrifices", (1993, SPQR series), in the historical mystery anthology The Mammoth Book of Historical Detectives, edited by Mike Ashley^[7]
• "The Statuette of Rhodes" (1996, SPQR series), in the historical mystery anthology Classical Whodunits: Murder and Mystery from Ancient Greece and Rome, edited by Mike Ashley
• "The Mountain Wolves" (1996, not in series) in the anthology Classical Stories: Heroic Tales from Ancient Greece and Rome, edited by Mike Ashley
• "The Etruscan House" (1998, SPQR series), in the historical mystery anthology Crime Through Time II, edited by Miriam Grace Monfredo and Sharon Newman^[8]
• "An Academic Question" (1998, SPQR series), in the historical mystery anthology Past Poisons: An Ellis Peters Memorial Anthology of Historical Crime, edited by Maxim Jakubowski
• "Venus in Pearls" (2001, SPQR series), in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, July–August 2001 ^[9]
• "The Will" (2003, SPQR series), in the historical mystery anthology The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits, edited by Mike Ashley
• "Beware the Snake" (2011, SPQR series), in the urban fantasy anthology Down These Strange Streets, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• John Maddox Roberts at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database