Bill Fawcett (writer)

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Not to be confused with William Fawcett (author) or Billy Fawcett.

William B. Fawcett (born May 13, 1947)[1] is an American editor, anthologist, game designer, book packager, fiction writer, and historian.

Life[edit]

Fawcett and fellow science fiction writer Jody Lynn Nye were married in 1987. They first met at a science fiction convention in 1985. At that time, Fawcett owned a gaming company in Niles, Illinois, and Nye began to work as a freelance writer for the company.[2]

Career[edit]

Bill Fawcett was one of the players in early Dungeons & Dragons games being played in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas, using photocopied prototypes of the rules handed out by Gary Gygax.[3]: 166  Darwin Bromley brought Fawcett on as a partner in Mayfair Games soon after the company was formed in 1980, and they worked together to design the game Empire Builder (1980).[3]: 166  As a veteran role-playing gamer, Fawcett got Mayfair involved in the RPG field, and the company kicked off its Role Aids line with Beastmaker Mountain (1982).[3]: 166  Fawcett was friends with Robert Asprin and Lynn Abbey, and FASA was able to leverage their connection with Mayfair to obtain a license to publish Thieves' World role-playing game adventures from 1982–1984.[3]: 120, 167  Fawcett and Jordan Weisman designed the robot arena fighting game Combots (1983) for FASA.[3]: 121 

Fawcett produced the Crossroads books (1987–1988), a series of licensed gamebooks published by Tor.[3]: 168  He also authored the short-lived SwordQuest gamebooks series.[4] He edited the book The War Years 1: The Far Stars War (1990).[5] With David Drake, he co-edited The Fleet series (1988-1991), as well as its sequels, Battlestation, Book One (1992), and Battlestation, Book Two: Vanguard (1993).[6] As a book packager, Fawcett was able to arrange a publishing deal between Wizards of the Coast and HarperCollins for novels set in the Magic: The Gathering multiverse of Dominia; the first novel in this series was Arena (1994).[3]: 278 

His 2008 book, Oval Office Oddities, was described as "Chock-full of information—trivia, anecdotes, charts, illustrations, etc." focusing on the lives of American presidents and their wives.[7]

Works[edit]

Fawcett and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro write mystery novels together under the pen name Quinn Fawcett.[8] Fawcett was also a field historian for the Navy SEAL museum in Fort Pierce, Florida, and has co-authored work on the US Navy Seals in Vietnam.[8]

As writer[edit]

  • Cold Cash Warrior: Combat Command in the World of Robert Asprin's Cold Cash War (with Robert Asprin) (1989)[9]

Mistakes in History series[edit]

  • Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing
  • 100 Mistakes That Changed History
  • Men At War
  • It Seemed Like A Good Idea
  • How To Lose A War At Sea
  • Doomed To Repeat
  • How To Lose WWII
  • How To Lose The Civil War
  • Hunters And Shooters
  • How To Lose A War
  • It Looked Good On Paper
  • Oval Office Oddities: An Irreverent Collection of Presidential Facts, Follies and Foibles[7]
  • You Said What?[10]
  • How To Lose A Battle
  • You Did What? Mad Plans and Great Historical Disasters (with Brian Thomsen) (2004)[11]

SwordQuest series[edit]

  • SwordQuest: Quest for the Unicorn's Horn (1985)
  • SwordQuest: Quest for the Dragon's Eye (1985)
  • SwordQuest: Quest for the Demon Gate (1986)
  • SwordQuest: Quest for the Elf King (1987)

Short-stories[edit]

As editor[edit]

  • Crafter I (with Christopher Stasheff) (1991)[12]
  • Gods of War (1992)[12]
  • The Fleet anthology series (with David Drake) [6][13]
    • The Fleet: The Fleet (1987) aka The Fleet, Book 1 [13]
    • The Fleet: Counter Attack (1988) aka The Fleet, Book 2 [13]
    • The Fleet: Breakthrough (1989) aka The Fleet, Book 3 [13]
    • The Fleet: Sworn Allies (1990) aka The Fleet, Book 4 [13]
    • The Fleet: Total war (1990) aka The Fleet, Book 5 [13]
    • The Fleet: Crisis (1991) aka The Fleet, Book 6 [13]
  • Battlestations anthology series — sequel to The Fleet anthology series [6]
    • Battlestation (with David Drake) (1992); aka Battlestation I[14]
    • Battlestation II (with Christopher Stasheff) (1993); aka Battlestation: Vanguard[12]
    • Battlestations (2011); omnibus edition of Battlestation I and Battlestation II
  • The Teams: An Oral History of the U.S. Navy SEALs with Kevin Dockery (1998)[15]
  • Making Contact: A Serious Handbook for Locating and Communicating With Extraterrestrials (1998)[16][17]
  • The Warmasters (2002)[18]
  • Masters of Fantasy (with Brian Thomsen) (2004)[11]
  • We Three Dragons: A Trio of Dragon Tales for the Holiday Season (2005)[19]
  • The Battle for Azeroth: Adventure, Alliance and Addiction in the 'World of Warcraft' (2006)[20]
  • Liftport: Opening Space to Everyone (2006)[21]
  • Nebula Awards Showcase 2010 (2010)[citation needed]
  • Mooney, J. E. & Bill Fawcett (eds.). Shadows of the New Sun : stories in honor of Gene Wolfe. Tor.

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Fawcett, Bill". Library of Congress Authorities (lccn.loc.gov). Retrieved October 19, 2018.
  2. ^ Scalf, Abby (July 24, 1998). "Wauconda native creates fantasy worlds for readers". Daily Herald. Archived from the original on December 14, 2019. Retrieved January 7, 2019.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. ISBN 978-1-907702-58-7.
  4. ^ Katz, Demian (2006-08-24). "Series - SwordQuest". Demian's Gamebook Web Page. Retrieved 2023-02-23.
  5. ^ Ings, Simon (Summer 1991). "'The Far Stars War' edited by Bill Fawcett (Book Review)". Foundation: 105.
  6. ^ a b c Westfahl, Gary (Summer 1994). "'Battlestation' edited by David Drake and Bill Fawcett (Book Review)". Foundation: 118.
  7. ^ a b Budasi, Teresa (March 2, 2008). "In praise of bathroom reading". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on March 29, 2015. Retrieved February 4, 2015.
  8. ^ a b Teri Smith and Jean Marie Ward (1998). "Author interview: "Bill Fawcett: Admitting to Influence". Crescent Blues. Retrieved January 8, 2013.
  9. ^ "Asprin, Robert L(ynn) 1946-". Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series. January 1, 2005. Archived from the original on March 29, 2015. Retrieved February 21, 2015.
  10. ^ Gillespie, Nick (December 14, 2007). "You Said What?". Reason.
  11. ^ a b "Thomsen, Brian M." Contemporary Authors. January 1, 2007. Archived from the original on March 29, 2015. Retrieved February 22, 2015.
  12. ^ a b c "Kurtz, Katherine 1944- (Katherine Irene Kurtz)". Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series. January 1, 2008. Archived from the original on March 29, 2015. Retrieved February 22, 2015.
  13. ^ a b c d e f g "The Fleet Series". Good Reads.
  14. ^ Green, Roland J. (July 5, 1992). "John Varley's Wacky Future Lunar Society". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on March 29, 2015. Retrieved February 22, 2015.
  15. ^ Douchette, John-Henry (May 3, 1998). "Inside the Nacy SEALs War Stories by Sea, Air and Land". The Virginian-Pilot. Norfolk, VA. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  16. ^ Flaherty, Dolores; Flaherty, Roger (July 26, 1998). "Lonely explorers of isolated lives". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on March 29, 2015. Retrieved February 4, 2015.
  17. ^ Shenfeld, Hilary (September 22, 1997). "Making Contact: Most Scientists Agree That Humans Will Discover Life on Other Planets Someday, but What If That Life Finds You First? A Wauconda Man's Book Tells You What to Do". Daily Herald. Arlington Heights, IL.[dead link]
  18. ^ "Flint, Eric 1947–". Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series. January 1, 2006. Archived from the original on March 29, 2015. Retrieved February 4, 2015.
  19. ^ "Ward, James M. 1951- (James Michael Ward, Jim Ward)". Contemporary Authors. January 1, 2008. Archived from the original on March 29, 2015. Retrieved February 5, 2015.
  20. ^ Kelly, Marguerite (November 30, 2007). "Time to Pull the Plug on Son's Gaming Habit". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  21. ^ Esser, Doug (July 9, 2006). "Take a hike, go on a date, explore space—Northwest style". The Columbian. Vancouver, WA. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved December 7, 2014.

External links[edit]

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