Mary Gentle

Mary Rosalyn Gentle (born 29 March 1956) is a UK science fiction and fantasy author.

Literary career

Mary Gentle's first published novel was Hawk in Silver (1977), a young-adult fantasy. She came to prominence with the Orthe duology, which consists of Golden Witchbreed (1983) and Ancient Light (1987).

The novels Rats and Gargoyles (1990), The Architecture of Desire (1991), and Left to His Own Devices (1994), together with several short stories, form a loosely linked series (collected in White Crow in 2003). As with Michael Moorcock's series about his antihero Jerry Cornelius, Gentle's sequence retains some basic facts about her two protagonists Valentine (also known as the White Crow) and Casaubon while changing much else about them, including what world they inhabit. Several take place in an alternate history version of 17th century and later England, where a form of Renaissance Hermetic magic has taken over the role of science. Another, Left To His Own Devices, takes place in a cyberpunk-tinged version of our own near future. The sequence is informed by historically existing ideas about esotericism and alchemy and is rife with obscure allusions to real history and literature.

Grunts! (1992) is a grand guignol parody of mass-market high fantasy novels, with orcs as heroes, murderous halflings, and racist elves.

Gentle formed part of the Midnight Rose collective in the early 1990s.

Ash: A Secret History (published in four volumes in the US) was a long science fantasy epic that won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 2000. Gentle has since published Ilario, set in the same timeline.

She has also written a number of erotic novels under the name Roxanne Morgan.[1]

Bibliography
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Novels
  • A Hawk in Silver. London: Gollancz, 1977. ISBN 0-575-02386-4
  • Grunts!. London: Bantam, 1992. ISBN 0-593-01956-3
  • 1610: A Sundial in a Grave (vt US A Sundial in a Grave: 1610). London: Gollancz, 2003. ISBN 0-575-07250-4
  • The Black Opera (vt UK Black Opera). San Francisco: Night Shade Books, 2012 (paper). ISBN 978-1-59780-219-2
Orthe series
  • Golden Witchbreed. London: Gollancz, 1984. ISBN 0-575-03332-0
  • Ancient Light. London: Gollancz, 1987. ISBN 0-575-03629-X
  • Orthe (omnibus edition). London: Gollancz, 2002 (paper). ISBN 0-575-07287-3
White Crow sequence
  • Rats and Gargoyles. London: Bantam, 1990. ISBN 0-593-01948-2
  • The Architecture of Desire. London: Bantam, 1991. ISBN 0-593-01952-0
  • Left to His Own Devices. London: Orbit, 1994 (paper). ISBN 1-85723-203-8
  • White Crow (omnibus edition). London: Gollancz, 2003 (paper). ISBN 0-575-07519-8
First History sequence
Ilario, A Story of the First History
  • Ilario: The Lion's Eye. London: EOS, 2006. ISBN 0-060-82183-3
  • Ilario: The Stone Golem. London: EOS, 2007. ISBN 978-0-06134-498-5
As Roxanne Morgan
  • Dares. London: X Libris, 1995 (paper). ISBN 0-7515-1341-5
  • Bets. London: X Libris, 1997 (paper). ISBN 0-7515-2046-2
  • A Game of Masks. London: X Libris, 1999 (paper). ISBN 0-7515-2308-9
  • Who Dares, Sins. London: X Libris, 1999 (paper). ISBN 0-7515-2938-9
  • Sinner Takes All. London: X Libris, 2000 (paper). ISBN 0-7515-3073-5
  • Degrees of Desire. London: X Libris, 2001 (paper). ISBN 0-7515-3087-5
  • Maximum Exposure. London: X Libris, 2004 (paper). ISBN 0-7515-3400-5

Short fiction
Collections
  • Scholars and Soldiers London: Macdonald, 1989. ISBN 0-356-17893-5
  • Left to His Own Devices. London: Orbit, 1994 (paper). ISBN 1-85723-203-8
  • Cartomancy. London: Gollancz, 2004 (paper). ISBN 0-575-07532-5
Stories[2]
Title Year First published Reprinted/collected Notes
Under the penitence 2004 Under the penitence. PS Publishing. 2004. Novella

Critical studies and reviews of Gentle's work
Lost Burgundy
  • Killheffer, Robert K. J. (January 2001). "Books". F&SF. 100 (1): 29–36.
The wild machines
  • Killheffer, Robert K. J. (January 2001). "Books". F&SF. 100 (1): 29–36.

Notes
  • Ash: A Secret History was published in the US in four paperback volumes:
    • A Secret History: The Book of Ash, #1
    • Carthage Ascendant: The Book of Ash, #2
    • The Wild Machines: The Book of Ash, #3
    • Lost Burgundy: The Book of Ash, #4
  • The novella Under the Penitence was incorporated into Ilario: The Lion's Eye. The two Ilario novels were also published (UK 2006) as a single narrative, also called Ilario: The Lion's Eye ISBN 978-0-575-07660-0.
  • Left to His Own Devices includes both the novel of the same name, printed for the first time, which forms part of the White Crow sequence, and also a few related and unrelated stories, some of which take place in the Weerde shared universe created by the collective Gentle belonged to, Midnight Rose.
  • Cartomancy puts together Gentle's short fiction unrelated to the White Crow sequence, which she included in the White Crow omnibus which also included all of the novels.
gollark: Arch is largely based on binary packages. Packages target x86-64 microprocessors to assist performance on modern hardware. A ports/ebuild-like system is also provided for automated source compilation, known as the Arch Build System. Arch Linux focuses on simplicity of design, meaning that the main focus involves creating an environment that is straightforward and relatively easy for the user to understand directly, rather than providing polished point-and-click style management tools — the package manager, for example, does not have an official graphical front-end. This is largely achieved by encouraging the use of succinctly commented, clean configuration files that are arranged for quick access and editing. This has earned it a reputation as a distribution for "advanced users" who are willing to use the command line. The Arch Linux website supplies ISO images that can be run from CD or USB. After a user partitions and formats their drive, a simple command line script (pacstrap) is used to install the base system. The installation of additional packages which are not part of the base system (for example, desktop environments), can be done with either pacstrap, or Pacman after booting (or chrooting) into the new installation.
gollark: On March 2021, Arch Linux developers were thinking of porting Arch Linux packages to x86_64-v3. x86-64-v3 roughly correlates to Intel Haswell era of processors.
gollark: The migration to systemd as its init system started in August 2012, and it became the default on new installations in October 2012. It replaced the SysV-style init system, used since the distribution inception. On 24 February 2020, Aaron Griffin announced that due to his limited involvement with the project, he would, after a voting period, transfer control of the project to Levente Polyak. This change also led to a new 2-year term period being added to the Project Leader position. The end of i686 support was announced in January 2017, with the February 2017 ISO being the last one including i686 and making the architecture unsupported in November 2017. Since then, the community derivative Arch Linux 32 can be used for i686 hardware.
gollark: Vinet led Arch Linux until 1 October 2007, when he stepped down due to lack of time, transferring control of the project to Aaron Griffin.
gollark: Originally only for 32-bit x86 CPUs, the first x86_64 installation ISO was released in April 2006.

References
  1. Mary Gentle (27 November 2000). "Re: Gentle Umrat on R4". Newsgroup: uk.media.radio.archers. Usenet: 8vttak$h7q$1@plutonium.compulink.co.uk.posting by Mary Gentle discussing her appearance on BBC Radio 4's Open Book.
  2. Short stories unless otherwise noted.
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