About Thomas Harlan

Fantasy, alternate-history and science fiction writer Thomas Harlan is the author of the critically acclaimed Oath of Empire series from Tor Books. He has been twice nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Author (in 1999 and 2000). In May of 2001, he received the SF^2 Award for Best New Fantasy Author. His first novel, The Shadow of Ararat was selected as one of the Barnes & Noble Top 20 Best SF&F Novels of 1999. The sequel, Gate of Fire, was chosen as both a B&N Top 20 book and placed on Locus Magazine’s Recommended Reading list for the year 2000. The third and fourth Oath of Empire novels, The Storm of Heaven and The Dark Lord were released in May of 2001 and 2002. A new series followed the cataclysmic end of Oath; an alternate-history science-fiction archaeological/combat series called In the time of the Sixth Sun. The first book, Wasteland of Flint, was published in 2003 and received a starred review in Kirkus. House of Reeds followed in 2004, and Land of the Dead in 2009.

Thomas has published a variety of very well received short fiction in Dragon magazine, as well as the largest adventure module ever published in Dungeon.

Twenty years of game design have produced a number of play-by-email systems, of which the long-running and increasingly complex Lords of the Earth is the best known. Lords is a historical simulation game, encompassing the whole of the Earth, modeling political, economic and military conflict from the early Iron Age to the late 1800’s. There are over forty Lords of the Earth campaigns currently in progress, in English, Spanish, and Italian. The initial campaign has been running for over twenty years and has chronicled the period from 1000 AD to 1770 AD. Lords of the Earth was nominated for an Origins/GAMA award for Best PBM Game of the Year in 2003.

Thomas was born in Tucson, Arizona on February 25th, 1964. He was raised by archaeologist – dendrochronologist – botanist parents and traveled widely throughout the American southwest and overseas as a result. A steady diet of Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings), Herbert (Dune), Herge (Tintin), Goscinny & Uderzo (Asterix), John Buchan (Greenmantle, The Thirty-Nine Steps, etc.), Talbot Mundy (The Nine Unknown, Jimgrim, King of the Khyber Rifles), Edgar Rice Burroughs (John Carter of Mars), Kenneth Bulmer (Prescot of Scorpio) and other purveyors of the fantastic inform his literary background. An excessively long stay in college provided him with a moderate background in creative writing, history, art and other sundry skills helpful to a novelist.

Aside from his literary career, Thomas spent too many years in the information technology industry as a developer, manager and architect for government, education and healthcare. He currently lives in Salem, Oregon.