Kage Baker Explained

Kage Baker
Birth Name:Mary Kate Genevieve Baker
Birth Date:10 June 1952
Birth Place:Hollywood, California, United States
Death Place:Pismo Beach, California, United States
Occupation:Writer
Period:1997–2010
Genre:Science fiction
Fantasy
Website:kagebaker.com (archived)

Kage Baker (June 10, 1952[1] – January 31, 2010[2]) 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.[3] Her unusual first name (pronounced like the word cage) is a combination of the names of her two grandmothers, Kate and Genevieve. Baker had Asperger syndrome.[4]

She is best known for her "the Company/Dr. Zeus, Inc." series of historical time travel science fiction.[5] 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[6] 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.[7]

In 2009, her short story "Caverns of Mystery" and her novel House of the Stag were both nominated for World Fantasy Awards, but neither piece won.[8]

In January 2010, it was reported that Baker was seriously ill with cancer.[9] She died from uterine cancer at approximately 1:00 a.m. on January 31, 2010, in Pismo Beach, California. She was survived by five younger siblings, mostly located in southern and central 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.[10] [11] On May 15, 2010, that work was awarded the 2009 Nebula Award in the Best Novella category.[12]

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.[13] From the foreword:

Baker left an unfinished novel, Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea, which has been completed by her sister Kathleen Bartholomew based on extensive notes left by Baker, and was published in 2012.[14]

Bibliography

The Company universe

Novels
Short story collections
Short stories and novellas

Novels

The Anvil of the World

Short fiction

Collections
Stories
width=25%TitleYearFirst publishedReprinted/collectedNotes
Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key2008Novella
Pareidolia2015Bartolomew, Kathleen . Kage Barker . amp . March 2015 . Pareidolia . Asimov's Science Fiction . 39 . 3 . 22–39. Novelette

Non-fiction

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Bio. Kage Baker. September 26, 2007. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20071003032616/http://www.kagebaker.com/bio.html. October 3, 2007. mdy-all.
  2. "Obituary: Kage Baker," SF Site, January 31, 2010
  3. Web site: Elizabethan English as a Second Language. January 20, 2010.
  4. Web site: Hath not an Aspie hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?. Bartholomew. Kathleen. May 10, 2019. Kathleen, Kage and the Company. March 9, 2020.
  5. Book: Broderick, Damien . Damien Broderick . 2019 . The Time Machine Hypothesis: Extreme Science Meets Science Fiction . Science and Fiction . . 155 . 978-3-030-16177-4 . 10.1007/978-3-030-16178-1. 199280899 .
  6. Web site: Theodore Sturgeon Award. January 20, 2010. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20100204071034/http://sfscope.com/2010/01/kage-baker-battling-metastasiz.html. February 4, 2010. mdy-all.
  7. http://archon.lib.niu.edu/index.php?p=collections/controlcard&id=400 Kage Baker Papers, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) Collection
  8. Web site: World Fantasy Awards Home Page . November 4, 2009 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20121027005155/http://www.worldfantasy.org/awards/ . October 27, 2012 .
  9. Web site: Kage Baker Health Update. January 15, 2010. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20100118093056/http://www.locusmag.com/News/2010/01/kage-baker-health-update.html. January 18, 2010. mdy-all.
  10. Web site: AussieCon 4 . The 2010 Hugo and John W. Campbell Award Nominees . April 4, 2010 . April 4, 2010 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120121025907/http://www.aussiecon4.org.au/index.php?page=66 . January 21, 2012 . dead .
  11. Web site: 2009 World Fantasy Awards Nominees. Locus Online News. August 24, 2010.
  12. News: Kevin . Standlee . Science Fiction Awards Watch . Nebula Awards Results . https://web.archive.org/web/20100525110902/http://www.sfawardswatch.com/?p=3274 . dead . May 25, 2010 . May 15, 2010 . May 15, 2010 .
  13. Web site: Bartholomew . Kate . Writing . Kate Baker . 15 March 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20171206054926/http://www.anaedream.com/writing . 6 December 2017.
  14. News: Upcoming4.me . Final novel by Kage Baker, Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea to be released . 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 . dead . February 19, 2013 . June 20, 2012 .

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