Shea, Michael

(US, 1946– )

Shea's career began with A Quest for Simbilis (1974), a work which was set (with Vance's permission) in the fantasy world of Jack Vance's ‘Dying Earth’, and which acted as a sequel to one of Vance's works seemingly left incomplete. Though this novel was a pastiche, Shea showed that he was one of few authors able to match his model in inventiveness. In this, as in his later works Nifft the Lean (1982) and In Yana, the Touch of Undying (1985), Shea shows his liking for taking his characters down into fantasy infernos or underworlds. Shea has also written sequels to or pastiches of H. P. Lovecraft's works in The Color out of Time (1984) and Fat Face (1987).

Jack Vance, Fritz Leiber. See FANTASY  TS