Joel Shepherd

Joel Shepherd (* 1974 in Adelaide ) is an Australian science fiction writer.

At the age of seven, he moved with his family to Perth , where he later studied film and television at Curtin University . He is the son of Kate Shepherd, the owner of the small publishing house Austral Ed , which sells textbooks to Asia . Joel helped his mother in this business, so he traveled a lot. Today he lives in Adelaide again.

Works

His first unpublished manuscript was nominated for the George Turner Prize in 1998 and the manuscript for Crossover in 1999 . This award, named after the prominent Australian writer and critic, is presented annually for an unpublished Australian science fiction / fantasy novel. His first novel Crossover was also nominated for the 2001 Aurealis Award in the Science Fiction category. This award recognizes achievements by Australian authors in the genres of science fiction and horror .

The first two novels Shepherds describe the adventures of Cassandra Kresnov (according to their own testimony, an artificial human being) that their special unit in the League to the city Tanusha on the Federation -Planet Callay fled, where she worked as an expert in cognitive software works .

His book series The Spiral Wars , which should comprise a total of ten volumes, has been published since 2015 . The action takes place over 1000 years in the future. Centuries ago, humanity narrowly escaped total annihilation by the extraterrestrial Crimea, which made the earth uninhabitable and killed 99% of people. The remnants of humanity gathered in space and waged a guerrilla war against the Crimea for several centuries before they could destroy their homeworld in retaliation. The lost earth has become the anchor point of a culture, whereby humanity acts truly united for the first time. Centuries later, humanity has rushed from war to war and from victory to victory as the new great power in the known universe, partly in alliance with other races. The result, however, was a largely militarized political system in which the fleet plays a central and virtually inviolable role. Now that the war against the Tavalai is over, the famous warship Phoenix is returning to the new human homeworld, Homeworld. But shortly afterwards, the captain, who is himself a war hero, is arrested without trial and murdered in prison. The blame is put on Erik Debogande, the third officer of the Phoenix , whose family belongs to the top civilian elite. But Erik is freed by Phoenix Marine Major Trace Thakur, who believes in his innocence. Phoenix escapes from Homeworld with part of the crew and is declared a rogue. Little by little, the crew of the Phoenix uncovered a conspiracy in the highest circles of the fleet. You will soon discover that even the human alien allies cannot be trusted and that the old stories about the rule of machine beings and AIs over 25,000 years ago are more relevant than many would like to admit.

bibliography

The Spiral Wars

• Renegade (2015)
• Drysine Legacy (2015)
• Kantovan Vault (2016)
• Defiance (2017)
• Croma Venture (2018)
• Rando Splicer (2019)

Cassandra Kresnov

• Crossover (2001) ISBN 0-7322-6799-4
• Breakaway (2003) ISBN 0-7322-7596-2
• Killswitch (2004) ISBN 0-7322-7597-0
• 23 Years on Fire (2013) ISBN 1-6161-4809-8
• Operation Shield (2014) ISBN 978-1616148959
• Originator (2015) ISBN 978-1616149932

A Trial of Blood and Steel

• Sasha (2007), ISBN 0-7336-2141-4
• Petrodor (2008), ISBN 0-7336-2255-0
• Tracato (2009), ISBN 0-7336-2418-9
• Haven (2010), ISBN 0-7336-2420-0

Web links

• Literature by and about Joel Shepherd in the catalog of the German National Library
• Joel Shepherd in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (English)
• Joel Shepherd in the Science Fiction Awards + Database (English)
• Works by and about Joel Shepherd at Open Library
• Portrait of Joel Shepherd (English)
• When you're Volume Two, you have to try harder by Clay Kallam (English)
• George Turner Prize nomination in 1998 (English)
• 2001 Aurealis Award nomination (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ George Turner Prize ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on locusmag.com (Engl.) , accessed 1 January 2015  
2. ↑ English review ( Memento of the original from April 27, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from October 30, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. English review