In his 1999 film The Wind Will Carry Us, a group of documentarians plan to record the funeral practices of a remote village when their intended subject lives longer than expected, they are forced to adapt to the village’s slower pace of life. Kiarostami’s movies are often set in small villages, and frequently mix elements of fiction and documentary. He came to international attention in the late 1980s as a leader of the Iranian New Wave. Kiarostami was an Iranian filmmaker whose career began with short films in the early 1970s. Much more of Lackey’s writing is available at OverDrive.Ībbas Kiarostami was born. James Mallory is co-author of the Obsidian Universe novels, beginning with The Outstretched Shadow it’s the story of a great war between the magical forces of good and evil.

The Heirs of Alexandria series, written by Eric Flint and Dave Freer, is set in Venice during the 1530s, as the characters become aware that magic and other ancient powers long thought to have vanished are reawakening the series begins with The Shadow of the Lion. She has edited several volumes of short stories/ by other authors set in her Valdemar universe and several large series of novels have been co-written with authors. In part, that’s because she’s very comfortable with collaboration. Lackey is an unusually prolific writer, with almost 150 novels and short story collections to her credit.

Like much of Lackey’s work, it’s set in the fictional country of Valdemar and follows a young woman’s journey to becoming a member of the queen’s corps of guards. In 1987, Lackey published her first novel, Arrows of the Queen. Her earliest professional publications were short stories published in the Sword and Sorceress series of anthologies edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley, who was an important early mentor for Lackey. Shortly thereafter, Lackey discovered the worlds of fan fiction and filk music (roughly, folk music, but with SF/fantasy-themed lyrics), and became active in both communities.

She began writing stories in childhood but had no serious thoughts of becoming a writer until her years at Purdue University, where a professor who was also a science fiction fan helped her begin to analyze the books she liked and to use her understanding of what worked and what didn’t in her own writing. Lackey was a voracious reader, to the point that her local public library had a difficult time keeping up with her. Lackey says that she first discovered science fiction and fantasy at the age of ten or eleven, browsing through the books in her father’s library, and she remembers Andre Norton as being an early favorite author. Lackey’s tales of elves, dragons, wizards, and other fantastic creatures have made her an enormously popular fantasy author. On June 24, 1950, Mercedes Lackey was born.

The Fire Rose by Mercedes Lackey