Jennifer Fallon biography

Jennifer Fallon was born in Carlton (a suburb of Melbourne, Australia) and lived in Caulfield until she was 11 when her father, a senior public servant, transferred to the national capital, Canberra. She lived in and around Canberra for about 8 years and went to school at Catholic Girls High School (now Mercy College) in Braddon. She is the ninth child in a family of thirteen girls.

The author has lived in the Northern Territory since 1980. She lived at a remote mine site and in Tennant Creek for a while; tried Darwin for a few years then settled in Alice Springs. After a brief stint in Melbourne in 2000, she is back in the Northern Territory.

Jennifer has two daughters and a son. She has had over 50 foster children and friends refer to her home as "the ashram" due to the large number of strays that still inhabit her house at irregular intervals.

Jennifer left school at 15 and has has worked as a youth worker, a store detective, shop assistant, an advertising sales rep and executive secretary, among other things. She has managed 2 hire car companies, an ISP, a video shop, been a state manager for an international cosmetics company and worked as a project manager for Territory Health Services.

Jennifer is an accredited workplace trainer and currently works with the NT Department of Corporate and Information Services and Group Training NT, teaching Certificate III in Business to trainees all over the Northern Territory, as well as teaching four days a week at Tangentyere Council as part of the Indigenous CDEP program. She is also the regular movie reviewer for ABC Radio 783 Alice Springs and is currently undertaking a Masters Degree at QUT.

In her spare time, Jennifer founded the Anzac Hill Gymnastics Club in 1991 (now the Alice Springs Gymnastic Club). She was the NT Technical Director of Rhythmic Gymnastics for 4 years and was the 1993 and 1995 NT RG Coach of the Year and judged gymnastics at a National level for a number of years. She coached her daughter, Amanda to an overall win at the Australian Nationals Levels Championships in 1995.

Jennifer's mother, who died when she was 13, was an aspiring (but unpublished) children's writer. Following in her mother's footsteps, like many other writers, in 1981 Jennifer wrote a Mills & Boon that was thankfully rejected. (She burned the manuscript.) She changed to fantasy in 1990 when she decided she would be better writing something for herself, rather than trying to please everyone else and claims to have written about a million words since then.

In 1995, after her ex-husband famously advised her to "quit writing and be a better housewife, because you're never going to get published", Jennifer decided to either get published by the year 2000 or give up writing and get a real job. Significantly, being a better housewife did not factor into her plans.

Her first series, The Demon Child Trilogy, was released in August 2000 in Australia and hit the bestseller list the first week it was released and was shortlisted for the 2000 Aurealis Awards as the best Fantasy of 2000. Jennifer's second book in the Tide Lords Trilogy, The Gods of Amyrantha, was also shortlisted for the 2007 awards.

Since then, her books have been released all over the world and translated into a number of different languages. Although technically, she writes full time, Jennifer still teaches business and computing, because she insists "it gets me out of the house".

Jennifer is currently working toward her masters degree, writes when she's in the mood and works occasionally as a Data Coordinator for the NT Government.

Jennifer Fallon books

The Demon Child Trilogy

  • Medalon (2000)
  • Treason Keep (2001)
  • Harshini (2001)

The Second Sons Trilogy

  • The Lion of Senet (2002)
  • Eye of the Labyrinth (2003)
  • Lord of the Shadows (2003)

The Hythrun Chronicles

  • Wolfblade (2004)
  • Warrior (2004)
  • Warlord (2005)

The Tide Lords

  • The Immortal Prince (2007)
  • Gods of Amyrantha (2007)
  • The Palace of Impossible Dreams (2008)
  • The Chaos Crystal (December 1, 2008)

Latest news: Jennifer Fallon

The final 2008 longlist for the David Gemmell Legends Award
The David Gemmell Legend Award will be presented for the very first time in 2009 for the best Fantasy novel of 2008. The award will be given to a work written in the 'spirit' of the late, great David Gemmell, a true Master of Heroic Fantasy. Voting opens at midnight on 26th December – but you have u [...]

Jennifer Fallon interviews

SFFWorld.com interview with Jennifer Fallon in July 2006 - Jennifer Fallon interview

Jennifer Fallon critical acclaim

Ein wunderbares Abenteuer voller Gefahr, Magie und Liebe.
Publishers Weekly

Fallon's strong world-building [Medalon] and strong prose style kept me glued to the pages.
Booksforabuck.com

For fantasy fans comes another title from an Australian Author highly rated in this field. This is the final volume of the Demon Child Trilogy and it lives up to the entertaining action, imagination and power of its predecessors.... Prepare yourself for non-stop adventure and romance. A good getaway read.
Australian Women's Weekly

The battles are fierce, the losses heartrending in Fallon's beautifully created world, whose disparate inhabitants are once again completely convincing, making Harshini a chilling, thrilling conclusion to the trilogy.
Booklist

Image: Dust of Dreams book cover

Book of the Month

Dust of Dreams by Steven Erikson
On the Letherii continent the exiled Malazan army commanded by Adjunct Tavore begins its march into the eastern Wastelands, to fight for an unknown cause against an enemy it has never seen. The fate awaiting the Bonehunters is one no soldier can prepare for, and one no mortal soul can withstand - the foe is uncertainty and the only weapon worth wielding is stubborn courage.

Previous winners of Book of the Month

An image of author Alex Bell

Latest interviews

Interviews plus question and answer sessions with authors, narrators and publishers.

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Must-reads

The following reviews are of books that begin the very best fantasy series available.

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Book View Cafe is a cooperative site created by a group of writers - including internationally renowned authors Katharine Kerr, Ursula Le Guin and Vonda N. McIntyre - who want to take advantage of the internet's possibilities for reaching a wider audience and to distribute their work directly to their readers. The Book View Cafe is a place where you can find free, original fiction plus the authors' best and out-of-print work for a fee. Fantasy Book Review spoke to Book View Cafe member, science fiction author and memoirist Chris Dolley in February 2010.

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