Simon Hawke

Simon Hawke (born September 30 1951) is an American author of mainly science fiction and fantasy novels. He was born Nicholas Valentin Yermakov, but began writing as Simon Hawke in the early 1980s, and later changed his name legally. He has also written near future adventure novels under the pennames "S. L. Hunter" and "J. D. Masters".

Contents

1 Works 2 Criticisms 3 Bibliography 3.1 Boomerang (as Nicholas Yermakov) 3.2 Time Wars 3.3 Psychodrome 3.4 Wizard of 4th Street 3.5 Big Jim Steele 3.6 The Reluctant Sorcerer 3.7 Battlestar Galactica (novelizations, as Nicholas Yermakov) 3.8 Predator (novelization) 3.9 Batman (novelization) 3.10 Star Trek (novelization) 3.11 Star Trek The Next Generation (novelizations) 3.12 Friday the Thirteenth (novelizations) 3.13 Birthright (TSR's shared world) 3.14 Dark Sun (TSR's shared world) 3.14.1 Tribe of One 3.14.2 Chronicles of Athas 3.15 Shakespeare & Smythe mysteries 3.16 Standalone novels

Works

Simon Hawke's (then Nicholas Yermakov's) early books were published in 1981-1984. Except for two Battlestar Galactica novelizations, they were ambitiously conceived, gravitated to the philosophical end of science fiction's spectrum and had limited commercial success. Since re-launching his career as "Simon Hawke" in 1984, he has produced a large volume of lighter, more commercially viable fiction. Almost all of his books published after 1984 have been either part of a series and/or tie-in novels and novelizations.

His first major work as Simon Hawke was the Timewars series, which recounts the adventures of an organisation tasked with protecting history from being changed by time travellers. In the world of the series, many people and events we consider fictional are historical, and vice versa; the action of each book in the series weaves in and out of the events of a famous work of literature. In the first book in the series, for instance, time travellers contesting the fate of Richard I of England become caught up in Walter Scott's Ivanhoe.

Among his more recent works is a series of humorous murder mysteries in which a young William Shakespeare and a fictional friend, Symington "Tuck" Smythe, figure out "who done it".

Criticisms

The Shakespeare and Smythe series has been criticized for historical inaccuracy, with many anachronisms and factual errors, and its poor reproduction of Elizabethan speech; arguably, however, many of these "faults" are deliberate acts of comic artistic licence. The series' comedy has also been criticized, seen by some as too similar to works such as the film Shakespeare in Love.

Bibliography

Boomerang (as Nicholas Yermakov)

• Last Communion (1981)
• Epiphany (1982)
• Jehad (1984)

Time Wars

• The Ivanhoe Gambit (1984)
• The Timekeeper Conspiracy (1984)
• The Pimpernel Plot (1984)
• The Zenda Vendetta (1985)
• The Nautilus Sanction (1985)
• The Khyber Connection (1986)
• The Argonaut Affair (1987)
• The Dracula Caper (1988)
• The Lilliput Legion (1989)
• The Hellfire Rebellion (1990)
• The Cleopatra Crisis (1990)
• The Six-Gun Solution (1991)

Psychodrome

• Psychodrome (1987)
• Psychodrome 2: The Shapechanger Scenario (1988)

Wizard of 4th Street

• The Wizard of 4th Street (1987)
• The Wizard of Whitechapel (1988)
• The Wizard of Sunset Strip (1989)
• The Wizard of Rue Morgue (1990)
• The Samurai Wizard (1991)
• The Wizard of Santa Fe (1991)
• The Wizard of Camelot (1993)
• The Wizard of Lovecraft's Cafe (1993)
• The 9 Lives of Catseye Gomez (1991 [spinoff, a 28 page short story published by Roadkill Press]
• The Nine Lives of Catseye Gomez (1992) [spinoff novel, expansion of the previous title]
• The Last Wizard (1997)

Big Jim Steele

• Steele ([June] 1989) [as J. D. Masters]
• Cold Steele ([October] 1989) [as J. D. Masters]
• Killer Steele ([January] 1990) [as J. D. Masters]
• Jagged Steele ([May] 1990) [as J. D. Masters]
• Renegade Steele ([September] 1990) [as J. D. Masters]
• Target Steele ([November] 1990) [as J. D. Masters]
• Fugitive Steele ([April] 1991) [as S. L. Hunter]
• Molten Steele ([September] 1991) [as S. L. Hunter]

The Reluctant Sorcerer

• The Reluctant Sorcerer (1992)
• The Inadequate Adept (1993)
• The Ambivalent Magician (1996)

Battlestar Galactica (novelizations, as Nicholas Yermakov)

• Battlestar Galactica #6: The Living Legend (1982) (with Glen Larson)
• Battlestar Galactica #7: War of the Gods (1982) (with Glen Larson)

Predator (novelization)

• Predator 2 (1990)

Batman (novelization)

• To Stalk a Specter (1991)

Star Trek (novelization)

• Star Trek #69: The Patrian Transgression (1994)

Star Trek The Next Generation (novelizations)

• Star Trek, the Next Generation #26: The Romulan Prize (1993)
• Star Trek, the Next Generation #34: Blaze of Glory (1995)

Friday the Thirteenth (novelizations)

• Friday the 13th, Part I (1987)
• Friday the 13th, Part II (1988)
• Friday the 13th, Part III (1988)

Birthright (TSR's shared world)

• The Iron Throne (1995)
• War (1996)

Dark Sun (TSR's shared world)

Tribe of One

• The Outcast (1993)
• The Seeker (1994)
• The Nomad (1994)

Chronicles of Athas

• The Broken Blade (1995)

Shakespeare & Smythe mysteries

• A Mystery of Errors (2000)
• The Slaying of the Shrew (2001)
• Much Ado About Murder (2002)
• The Merchant of Vengeance (2003)

Standalone novels

• Journey from Flesh (1981) (as Nicholas Yermakov)
• Clique (1982) (as Nicholas Yermakov)
• Fall Into Darkness (1982) (as Nicholas Yermakov)
• The Whims of Creation (1995)