 |
|
| Roxanne Conrad, aka Rachel Caine | |
Roxanne Conrad, who wrote under the names Rachel Caine, Roxanne Longstreet and Julie Fortune, died on Sunday, November 1, at the age of 58. She had been fighting an aggressive form of soft tissue sarcoma.
Conrad was best known as Rachel Caine and for her Weather Warden and Morganville Vampires series. The Weather Warden made its debut in 2003 with Ill Wind and continued with eight more volumes. She had planned a 10th book in the series, funding it through Kickstarter, but canceled the project when her health declined.
The Morganville Vampires, a YA urban fantasy/vampire series, began in 2006 with Glass Houses and grew to 15 books. Conrad sold TV rights, but eventually turned to Kickstarter to produce a webseries with Geek & Sundry in 2014.
Her other popular works include the Great Library series and the Stillhouse Lake adult thriller novels. In 2011, she co-edited Chicks Kick Butt with Kerrie L. Hughes.
Conrad published her debut novel, Stormriders, set in the same world as the Shadow World roleplaying game, and several other novels in the 1990s. However, it was only after 2000 that her career bloomed. Altogether she published 56 novels and many short stories.
As publisher Tor noted, in 2006, Conrad said she had resisted writing early in her life and was focused on a career in music instead: "Oh, I wrote in secret, in private, and finally in 1991 a friend of mine sent me to go 'talk to some writers' because he couldn't believe that I wrote so much and didn't plan to do anything with it," she said. "Writing was just something I did for fun."
Those writers changed her mind. After talking with them, "I got so excited about it that it began to take over my life, and finally I decided I had to make a decision about which dream to follow. I chose the writing. Must have been the right choice, because within a year, I'd sold my first book."
The family is making arrangements for a virtual memorial service and will release details in the coming weeks. In lieu of flowers, the family asked for donations to be sent to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of American Emergency Medical Fund or the Mary Crowley Cancer Research Center in Dallas, Tex.