After selling a few stories to Analog in the mid-1970s, Bud Sparhawk found that graduate school and then life forced him into a “lengthy hiatus.” He returned to science fiction with more sales to Analog in 1993, and has been publishing steadily since then. Now he sends word that his “third book, and first published novel” is being published by Cosmos Books this month. Vixen “deals with the application of power and its effect on relationships, of illicit love and of the failure of marriage, hope, and purpose on an interstellar colony ship. The ship’s rigid far future society is stressed by the colonists’ fight for survival, conflicts among the ship’s leadership over mission, and the appearance of mysterious objects that hint of obscene intelligence.”
Sparhawk won an AnLab (readers’ choice) award from Analog for “Primrose and Thorn” in 1996. That story was also his first Nebula finalist (he also appeared on the Nebula ballot with 2001’s “Magic’s Price” and 2004’s “Clay’s Pride”).