Kage Baker#Novels set in the Company universe

{{infobox writer

| name = Kage Baker

| image = Kage Baker 3491.jpg

| imagesize = 200px

| alt =

| caption = Kage Baker in 2009

| pseudonym =

| birth_name = Mary Kate Genevieve Baker{{isfdb name|id=Kage_Baker|name=Kage Baker}}

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1952|6|10}}

| birth_place = Hollywood, California, United States

| death_date = {{death date and age|2010|1|31|1952|6|10}}

| death_place = Pismo Beach, California, United States

| resting_place =

| occupation = Writer

| language =

| nationality =

| ethnicity =

| citizenship =

| education =

| alma_mater =

| period = 1997–2010

| genre = Science fiction
Fantasy

| subject =

| movement =

| notableworks =

| spouse =

| partner =

| children =

| relatives =

| influences =

| influenced =

| awards =

| signature =

| signature_alt =

| website = [https://web.archive.org/web/20090401001018/http://kagebaker.com/ kagebaker.com] (archived)

| portaldisp =

}}

Kage Baker (June 10, 1952{{cite web|url=http://www.kagebaker.com/bio.html/|title=Bio|author=Kage Baker|access-date=September 26, 2007|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071003032616/http://www.kagebaker.com/bio.html|archive-date=October 3, 2007|df=mdy-all}} – January 31, 2010"[http://www.sfsite.com/news/2010/01/31/obituary-kage-baker/ Obituary: Kage Baker] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120909034041/http://www.sfsite.com/news/2010/01/31/obituary-kage-baker/ |date=September 9, 2012 }}", SF Site, January 31, 2010) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer.

Biography

Baker was born and raised in Hollywood, California, and lived in Pismo Beach later in life. Before becoming a professional writer she spent many years in theater, including teaching Elizabethan English as a second language.{{cite web|url=http://www.sfsite.com/08b/kb134.htm|title=Elizabethan English as a Second Language|access-date=January 20, 2010}} Her unusual first name (pronounced like the word cage) is a combination of the names of her two grandmothers, Kate and Genevieve.{{Citation needed|date=March 2020}} Baker had Asperger syndrome.{{Cite web|url=https://doctorzeus.co/2019/05/10/hath-not-an-aspie-hands-organs-dimensions-senses-affections-passions/|title=Hath not an Aspie hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?|last=Bartholomew|first=Kathleen|date=May 10, 2019|website=Kathleen, Kage and the Company|access-date=March 9, 2020}}

She is best known for her "the Company/Dr. Zeus, Inc." series of historical time travel science fiction.{{cite book |last=Broderick |first=Damien |author-link=Damien Broderick |date=2019 |title=The Time Machine Hypothesis: Extreme Science Meets Science Fiction |series=Science and Fiction |publisher=Springer |page=155 |isbn=978-3-030-16177-4 |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-16178-1|s2cid=199280899 }} Her first stories were published in Asimov's Science Fiction in 1997, and her first novel, In the Garden of Iden, by Hodder & Stoughton in the same year. Other notable works include Mendoza in Hollywood (novel, 2000) and "The Empress of Mars" (novella, 2003), which won the Theodore Sturgeon Award{{cite web|url=http://sfscope.com/2010/01/kage-baker-battling-metastasiz.html|title=Theodore Sturgeon Award|access-date=January 20, 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100204071034/http://sfscope.com/2010/01/kage-baker-battling-metastasiz.html|archive-date=February 4, 2010|df=mdy-all}} and was nominated for a Hugo Award.

In 2008, she donated her archive to the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University.[http://archon.lib.niu.edu/index.php?p=collections/controlcard&id=400 Kage Baker Papers, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) Collection], Northern Illinois University

In 2009, her short story "Caverns of Mystery" and her novel House of the Stag were both nominated for World Fantasy Awards; neither piece won.{{cite web|url=http://www.worldfantasy.org/awards/ |title=World Fantasy Awards Home Page |access-date=November 4, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121027005155/http://www.worldfantasy.org/awards/ |archive-date=October 27, 2012 }}

In January 2010, it was reported that Baker was seriously ill with cancer.{{cite web|url=http://www.locusmag.com/News/2010/01/kage-baker-health-update.html|title=Kage Baker Health Update|access-date=January 15, 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100118093056/http://www.locusmag.com/News/2010/01/kage-baker-health-update.html|archive-date=January 18, 2010|df=mdy-all}} She died from uterine cancer on January 31, 2010, in Pismo Beach, California.

In 2010, Baker's The Women of Nell Gwynne's was nominated for a Hugo Award and a World Fantasy Award in the Best Novella categories.{{cite web |publisher=AussieCon 4 |title=The 2010 Hugo and John W. Campbell Award Nominees |url=http://www.aussiecon4.org.au/index.php?page=66 |date=April 4, 2010 |access-date=April 4, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120121025907/http://www.aussiecon4.org.au/index.php?page=66 |archive-date=January 21, 2012 |url-status=dead }}{{cite web|url=http://www.locusmag.com/News/2010/08/2009-world-fantasy-awards-nominees/|title=2009 World Fantasy Awards Nominees|work=Locus Online News|date=August 24, 2010}} On May 15, 2010, that work was awarded the 2009 Nebula Award in the Best Novella category.{{cite news|first=Kevin |last=Standlee |publisher=Science Fiction Awards Watch |title=Nebula Awards Results |url=http://www.sfawardswatch.com/?p=3274 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100525110902/http://www.sfawardswatch.com/?p=3274 |url-status=dead |archive-date=May 25, 2010 |date=May 15, 2010 |access-date=May 15, 2010 }}

Kage spent much of the last year of her life watching and reviewing silent films. Many of her reviews were collected posthumously into Ancient Rockets: Treasures and Trainwrecks of the Silent Screen (2011), edited by her sister Kathleen Bartholomew.{{cite web |last1=Bartholomew |first1=Kate |title=Writing |url=http://www.anaedream.com/writing |website=Kate Baker |access-date=15 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171206054926/http://www.anaedream.com/writing |archive-date=6 December 2017}} From the foreword:

{{Poem quote|All these reviews were written during the last year of Kage's life. I don't think that affected her view much—sometimes she was so tired that watching films and composing reviews was all she could manage, so they got her nearly undivided attention. As the year wore on, more and more of them were composed ex tempore and dictated to me; I think there is a more conversational style in those, as we argued out the reviews. One she recited in a single long soliloquy in her hospital room; it was written that evening, as I doggedly transferred Kage's voice from my head to paper.

The last one is dated December 21, 2009. Three days later, we discovered her cancer had metastasized to her brain. A month later, she was gone.Ancient Rockets: Treasures and Trainwrecks of the Silent Screen, ed. Kathleen Bartholomew (2011)}}

Baker left an unfinished novel, Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea, which was completed by her sister Kathleen Bartholomew based on extensive notes left by Baker, and was published in 2012.{{cite news |publisher=Upcoming4.me |title=Final novel by Kage Baker, Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea to be released |url=http://upcoming4.me/media-news/book-news/item/10084-final-novel-by-kage-baker,-nell-gwynne%E2%80%99s-on-land-and-at-sea-to-be-released |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130219043539/http://upcoming4.me/media-news/book-news/item/10084-final-novel-by-kage-baker,-nell-gwynne%E2%80%99s-on-land-and-at-sea-to-be-released |url-status=dead |archive-date=February 19, 2013 |access-date=June 20, 2012 }}

Bibliography

= The Company universe=

;Novels

In the Garden of Iden (1997)
Sky Coyote (1999)
Mendoza in Hollywood (2000) (published in the UK as At the Edge of the West)
The Graveyard Game (2001)
The Life of the World to Come (2004)
The Children of the Company (2005)
The Machine's Child (2006)
The Sons of Heaven (2007)
The Empress of Mars (2009) (novel version)
Not Less than Gods (2010)
Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea (2012)

;Short story collections

Black Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers (2002)
Gods and Pawns (2007)
In the Company of Thieves (2013)

;Short stories and novellas

The Empress of Mars (2003) (novella version)
The Angel in the Darkness (limited edition chapbook, 2003)
Where the Golden Apples Grow (2006) (novella)
Rude Mechanicals (2007)
The Women of Nell Gwynne's (limited edition, 2009) (Also released as 'Nell Gwynne's Scarlet Spy')

= Novels =

The Hotel Under the Sand (2009) (juvenile) Tachyon Publications

;The Anvil of the World

The Anvil of the World (2003)
The House of the Stag (2008) (Prequel to The Anvil of the World)
The Bird of the River (2010)

= Short fiction =

;Collections

Mother Ægypt and Other Stories (2004) (title story takes place in the Company universe)
Dark Mondays (2006)
The Best of Kage Baker (2012) (includes stories set in and out of the Company universe)

;Stories

class='wikitable sortable' width='90%'
width=25%\|Title !\|Year !\|First published !\|Reprinted/collected !\|Notes
Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key \|2008 \| \| \|Novella
Pareidolia \|2015 \|{{cite journal \|author1=Bartolomew, Kathleen \|author2=Kage Barker \|name-list-style=amp \|date=March 2015 \|title=Pareidolia \|journal=Asimov's Science Fiction \|volume=39 \|issue=3 \|pages=22–39}} \| \|Novelette

class='wikitable sortable' width='90%'

width=25%|Title

!|Year

!|First published

!|Reprinted/collected

!|Notes

Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key

|2008

|Novella

Pareidolia

|2015

|{{cite journal |author1=Bartolomew, Kathleen |author2=Kage Barker |name-list-style=amp |date=March 2015 |title=Pareidolia |journal=Asimov's Science Fiction |volume=39 |issue=3 |pages=22–39}}

|Novelette

=Non-fiction=

Ancient Rockets: Treasures and Trainwrecks of the Silent Screen, ed. Kathleen Bartholomew (2011) Tachyon Publications

References

External links

{{official|https://web.archive.org/web/20090401001018/http://kagebaker.com/|Archived official website}}
[https://doctorzeus.co/ Kathleen, Kage & the Company], blog about Kage by her sister Kate
[http://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/baker_kage Kage Baker] entry at the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
[https://www.freesfonline.net/authors/Kage_Baker.html Kage Baker] at Free Speculative Fiction Online
{{isfdb name|id=Kage_Baker|name=Kage Baker}}
[https://www.tor.com/author/kage-baker/ Kage Baker] silent film reviews at Tor.com