Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997)
Baudino, Gael

Tagged: Author.

(1955-    ) US writer and harpist, formerly a priestess of Dianic Wicca. Her music and religious background inform several of her novels, particularly Gossamer Axe (1990), in which a sixth-century Celtic harpist flung into the twentieth-century USA uses heavy rock to rescue her lover from her captivity by the Sidhe (see Fairies). Baudino's tetralogy about the last of the Elves is remarkable for its lack of whimsy, with elves, heretics and followers of the Old Religion hunted down equally by the Inquisition. The series comprises Strands of Starlight (1989), Maze of Moonlight (1993) and Shroud of Shadow (1993), all set in a fictional country in a well drawn medieval Europe, plus Strands of Sunlight (1994), where the elf-blood reawakens in modern Denver. Baudino's Dragon trilogy – Dragonsword (1988), Duel of Dragons (1991) and Dragon Death (1992) – is more usual fantasy fare: a dumpy lecturer suddenly finds herself a stunningly beautiful sword-wielding dragon-rider in a standard Fantasyland which proves the mental creation of her professor. These books are characterized by a dark harshness that jars with the flip telling. [DVB]

Gael Baudino

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