story that evoked much of the spirit of H. P. LOVE-
CRAFTin its depiction of a decaying, cursed place
destined to serve as a pivotal site for the return of
an ancient evil. Klein eventually reworked the idea
into his only novel, Ceremonies(1984), which was
nominated for the World Fantasy Award and
which won the British Fantasy Award. Ceremonies
clearly draws on Lovecraft and other classic horror
writers and builds its mood in very small incre-
ments, catching the reader almost unaware. Two
people discover that their lives are being quietly
manipulated by a third party, a man attempting to
arrange things so that the supernatural entity he
serves can return to the world of humanity. A
straightforward plot description cannot do justice
to Klein’s textured, intensely intellectual story.
All of Klein’s other fiction consists of short
stories and novelettes, four of which are collected
in Dark Gods(1985). The best of these is “Nadel-
man’s God” (1986), which won the World Fantasy
Award, although “Children of the Kingdom”
(1980), “One Size Eats All” (1993), and “Growing
Things” (1999) are nearly as good. Klein produces
new fiction too infrequently to have a large and
active following, but the quality of even his lesser
stories is so high that his name is highly regarded
by readers and fellow writers alike.
Knaak, Richard A. (1961– )
Contemporary fantasy is dominated by the big
novel, in fact more commonly the big three-part
novel, with large casts of characters, a panoramic
scope of action involving the rise and fall of king-
doms, multiple story lines, and societies that follow
in the manner of J. R. R. TOLKIEN,E. R. EDDISON,
and other early fantasists. But there is another tra-
dition that appeals to a slightly different reader-
ship, the sword and sorcery adventure story as
popularized by Robert E. HOWARDand his imita-
tors. Typically, these stories focus on a single or at
least a very small group of protagonists, there is
usually a single significant story line, and the em-
phasis is on action and adventure rather than
character development and background.
Most of the sword and sorcery fiction pro-
duced currently is linked to either a role-playing
game system or a computer simulation such as
FORGOTTEN REALMSand WARHAMMER. Although
most of the authors writing these tie-ins tend to
work primarily in that area, a few have moved on
to create worlds of their own. One of the most pro-
lific and reliable of these is Richard A. Knaak, who
started his career with a DRAGONLANCEnovel, The
Legend of Huma(1988), and a few related stories
but who quickly established himself as a general
fantasist with Firedrake(1989), the first in the
Dragonrealm series. Although he continued to
produce tie-ins intermittently during his subse-
quent career, the best of his work is entirely origi-
nal, although often similar in tone and execution.
The common plot element in the Drag-
onrealm series is that the various dragons have dis-
tinct colors that govern their attributes. The 10th
and most recent volume in the series, The Horse
King,appeared in 1997. The individual titles each
tackle one of the traditional conflicts of the bar-
barian adventure, evil sorcerers, mysterious shape
changers, ancient evil gods, wars, monstrous crea-
tures, and occasional intrigues. They are meant to
be light entertainment rather than serious fiction,
and for the most part Knaak has been quite suc-
cessful at achieving that goal, particularly in Chil-
dren of the Drake(1991) and The Crystal Dragon
(1993).
The best of Knaak’s novels are those not set
within a series. In King of the Grey(1993) vampires
and other mythical creatures exist only as potential
beings until they draw life from an enigmatic man.
Frostwing(1995) subjects its protagonist to images
of a living gargoyle in contemporary Chicago. A
ruthless aristocrat imprisons the souls of his ene-
mies within elaborate masks in The Janus Mask
(1995), probably Knaak’s best novel to date. It is
entirely possible that he will never write the kind
of breakthrough work that leads to best-seller sta-
tus, but Knaak has produced a steady supply of ex-
citing, intelligently written light adventure stories
that are always readable and sometimes find new
ways to twist old story lines.Koja, Kathe(1960– )
Kathe Koja first began to make an impact on hor-
ror fiction with several very powerful short stories
during the late 1980s, many of which deal with194 Knaak, Richard A.