Karl Lassiter Biography

Robert E. Vardeman I have been a professional writer since my first sale of a fantasy novel, The Peregrination Ring, to Dell Publishing in 1975. The book was never published but I was paid. My next sale was to a spy series and was never published, either. But I was paid for it, too. The first novel I had published was a science fiction title in 1978, Sandcats of Rhyl. The original cover was so bad, an olive drab walrus with a fishing net draped indecorously over its snout, that the distributor refused to carry the book. Replacing it was a Frank Frazetta knock-off cover of a fur clad barbarian clutching a spear and the leash to a snarling saber tooth tiger.

Neither cover had anything in the least to do with the contents. But the latter cover looked pretty spiffy.

My first published short story was a collaboration with friend Jeff Slaten and appeared in an anthology edited by Edward Bryant, 2076: The American Tricentennial. Our story, "Father of His Country," dealt with cloning and time travel and -- you can guess a great deal by those clues and the title of the story. From the anthology title you'd think the publisher saw a window of opportunity in 1976 to cash in on Bicentennial festivities to show what the country might be like a hundred years hence. By publishing acumen, the book did not see the light of sale until April 1977. Which might be one reason Pyramid Publishing is no longer among us.

From there I became embroiled in SFWA politics and served as Forum editor for almost 18 months before serving a term as vice-president while Jack Williamson, another New Mexican, was president. I learned a great deal about politics and little about writing in this era.

The Cenotaph Road series is one of my favorites and was the beginning of a lot of fantasy novels, including nine Swords of Raemllyn books done with my best friend Geo. W. Proctor . Two Star Trek (tm) novels followed, along with three mysteries, a high tech thriller and more than fifty westerns done in what is billed as "Today's Longest Running Action Western!" In this series, under a house pen name, I have explored the West from the tongs of Chinatown's Dupont Gai to strange monsters in Utah's Bear Lake to werewolves in Montana, cursed spurs and Aztec priestesses (I discovered Montezuma was born around what is now Hobbs, NM), to more usual range wars and paddlewheeler races and gunfighters willing to shoot you if you looked at them askance. I developed quite a taste for western fiction.

So was born Karl Lassiter, to give me the chance to do larger books that did not fit into a series format.

Robert E. Vardeman

Last Updated:April 2002