Sean Russell (author)

This article is about the writer. For the Irish republican, see Seán Russell.

Sean Thomas Russell (born 30 January 1952) is a Canadian writer of fantasy, and of historical novels featuring the Royal Navy. His work has been published under the names Sean Russell and S. Thomas Russell as well as his full name, and he has collaborated with Ian Dennis (also born 1952) under the joint pseudonym T.F. Banks.

Sean Russell also has an official club in Arden Hills, Minnesota. The club consists mostly of swimmers attending Mounds View High School, who claim Sean Russell to be their mentor. At multiple dual meets, the swimmers were quoted chanting, "Sean Russell! Sean Russell! First name Sean, last name Russell!" With their arms spinning around their head.

The clubs origins come from one of his books discovered at Chippewa Middle School on the free book cart. His picture was pasted on the wall.

Life

Sean Russell was born in Toronto, Ontario, in 1952. At the age of three his family moved to the outskirts of the city, where they lived in a cottage at the beach of Lake Ontario. At the age of ten he decided to become an author, and the fantasy genre caught him years later, while reading J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. After university, he moved to Vancouver, and two years later to Vancouver Island, where he still lives with his family. He published his first novel in 1991.

His first historical naval novel Under Enemy Colours, published in 2007, introduced a new Royal Navy hero, Charles Hayden, and HMS Themis, a fictional fifth-rate ship of the Royal Navy.

Works

Initiate Brother

The series is laid in a fantasy empire combining aspects of China and Japan.

• Vol. 1: The Initiate Brother, DAW Books, 1991, ISBN 0-88677-466-7
• Vol. 2: Gatherer of Clouds, DAW Books, 1992, ISBN 0-88677-536-1

Moontide and Magic Rise

• Vol. 1: World Without End, DAW Books, 1995, ISBN 0-88677-624-4
• Vol. 2: Sea Without a Shore, DAW Books, 1996, ISBN 0-88677-665-1

The River into Darkness

This fantasy duology is a prequel to the "Moontide and Magic Rise" duology.

• Vol. 1: Beneath the Vaulted Hills, DAW Books, 1997, ISBN 0-88677-794-1
• Vol. 2: The Compass of the Soul, DAW Books, 1998, ISBN 0-88677-933-2
• Vol. 1-2: The River into Darkness, Science Fiction Book Club, 1998, ISBN 1-56865-901-6 (omnibus)

Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner

Sean Russell wrote these books in collaboration with Ian Dennis under their common pen-name T. F. Banks.

• Vol. 1: The Thief Taker, Delacorte Press, 2001, ISBN 0-385-33571-7
• Vol. 2: The Emperor's Assassin, Dell Books, 2003, ISBN 0-440-24084-0

Swans' War

• Vol. 1: The One Kingdom, HarperCollins, 2001, ISBN 0-380-97489-4
• Vol. 2: The Isle of Battle, HarperCollins, 2003, ISBN 0-380-97490-8
• Vol. 3: The Shadow Roads, HarperCollins, 2005, ISBN 0-380-97491-6

Themis series

Written as by Sean Thomas Russell, these books are historical fiction about HMS Themis, a Royal Navy frigate, at the time of the French Revolution.

• Under Enemy Colours (2007)
• A Battle Won (2010)
• A Ship of War (2012); US title, 2013, Take, Burn or Destroy
• Until the Sea Shall Give Up Her Dead (2014)

See also

• Historical fantasy
• Sea story

References

• "Sean Russell". Fantastic Fiction (fantasticfiction.co.uk). Retrieved 2014-08-01. With bibliography.
• "S Thomas Russell". Fantastic Fiction (fantasticfiction.co.uk). Retrieved 2008-03-19. With bibliography.
• "Under Enemy Colors by S. Thomas Russell". Reading matters. 9 September 2007. Retrieved 2008-03-19.

External links

• Sean Russell website, includes fantasy and "Bow Street Runner" novels
• S. Thomas Russell website, includes HMS Themis novels
• Sean Russell at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Review of "The Initiate Brother" and "Gatherer of Clouds"
• Review of "The Initiate Brother"
• Sean Russell at Library of Congress, with 10 library catalogue records (includes S. Thomas Russell)
• T. F. Banks at LC Authorities, with 3 records