Looking for great savings on used books? How about almost 3 million books with FREE SHIPPING?

cart Cart 0 items

Buy books by Joan D. Vinge

Born: 04/02/1948

Joan D. Vinge Biography & Notes


Joan D. Vinge (born 1948 in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American science fiction author. She is known for her Hugo Award-winning novel The Snow Queen, its sequels, and her series about the telepath named Cat.

Vinge studied art in college, but eventually changed to a major in anthropology, and received a B.A. degree in it from San Diego State University.

Her first published story, "Tin Soldier", a novelette, appeared in Orbit 14 in 1974. Stories have also appeared in Analog, Millennial Women, Asimov's Science Fiction, Omni Magazine, and several "Best of the Year" anthologies.

Several of her stories have won major awards: Her novel The Snow Queen won the 1981 Hugo Award for Best science fiction Novel. "Eyes of Amber" won the 1977 Hugo Award for Best Novelette. She has also been nominated for several other Hugo and Nebula Awards, as well as for the John W. Campbell New Writer Award. Her novel Psion was named a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association.

Her Return of the Jedi Storybook was the #1 bestseller on the New York Times Book Review List for two months; it was the first such book to reach #1 on the list, and the bestselling hardcover book of 1983.

Vinge has been married twice: First to fellow SF author Vernor Vinge, and then to SF editor James Frenkel. Vinge and Frenkel have two children.


Suggestions or corrections for the editor? Click here.


Catspaw Catspaw by Joan D. Vinge ( 2002)

Cat, a telepathic half-human, half-alien orphan and future punk, is kidnapped, taken to Earth, and forced to protect those he hates most, the taMings, until he discovers that he is not a bodyguard, he is the bait.
The Crystal Ship by Robert Silverberg, Vonda N. McIntyre, Joan D. Vinge, Marta Randall ( 1976)
Dreamfall Dreamfall by Joan D. Vinge ( 2004)

The sequel to the best-selling Catspaw and Psion continues the series featuring the telepathic, half-human Cat, who travels to his mother's native world of Refuge, where he faces an ecological catastrophe caused by greedy humans. Reprint.
The Dune Storybook by Joan D. Vinge ( 1984)

The Atreides and Harkonnen families struggle for control of the planet Dune, sole source of the powerful, mind-altering spice, melange.
Heaven Chronicles by Joan D. Vinge ( 1991)

En route to Heaven Belt, an asteroid pattern thought to be as rich in natural resources as is Earth, the inhabitants of the planet Morningside are attacked by the people of the outermost asteroid, and a civil war ensues.
Lost in Space Lost in Space by Joan D. Vinge ( 1998)

The Robinson family is blasting off again, in an all-new version of the immortal SF classic starring Gary Oldman, William Hurt, Matt LeBlanc, Mimi Rogers and Heather Graham. The world they are fleeing has changed dramatically, and so has their deep space mission.The Robinsons lift off from a dying Earth, sickened by pollution and overpopulation. They pilot a hyperdrive spaceship through quantum wormholes and across relativistic reefs in search of a new Eden, Alpha Prime--an unspoiled planet light-years away, where humankind will get its second and last chance. And they face enemies more awesome, more devious and more lethal than anything they ever faced before.
Lost in Space Novelization Lost in Space Novelization Novelization by Joan D. Vinge, Akiva Goldsman ( 1998)

The Robinsons are blasting off again in an all-new, major motion picture. This all-new Lost in Spacecombines the familiar pleasures of the classic television show with an exciting contemporary cinematic edge, as the Robinsons find themselves "lost in space" once again: crash-landing on a planet breaking up from tectonic storms, threatened by a horde of spiderlike aliens, and most surprising of all--discovering an alternate time-stream link to Earth's distant future!
Phoenix in the Ashes by Joan D. Vinge ( 1986)

From the Hugo Award-winner comes a collection of six of her finest short works--"Psiren," "The Peddler's Apprentice," "Phoenix in the Ashes," "The Storm King," "Mother and Child," and "Voices from the Dust"
Psion Psion by Joan D. Vinge ( 2007)

Orphaned young and forced to survive on the streets of a distant planet, telepathic urchin Cat is the ultimate future punk, but he is swept into a struggle for his life when two interstellar powers want to use his mind as a weapon, in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition of the classic science fiction novel. Reprint.
The Random House Book of Greek Myths The Random House Book of Greek Myths by Joan D. Vinge, Oren Sherman ( 1999)

The Hugo Award-winning author retells some of the most famous Greek myths about gods, goddesses, humans, heroes, and monsters, explaining the background of the tales and how they have survived. Full color.
Return of the Jedi The Storybook Based on the Movie by Joan D. Vinge ( 1983)

In a sequel to "The Star Wars Storybook" and "The Empire Strikes Back Storybook", Luke Skywalker and his friends in the Rebel Alliance formulate a daring plan to battle with the Empire and its evil leaders, Darth Vader and the Emperor.
Star Wars the First Ten Years 1977 1987 Movie Storybook Trilogy by Joan D. Vinge, Shep Steneman, Geraldine Richelson ( 1987)
The Summer Queen The Summer Queen by Joan D. Vinge ( 2003)

This sequel to SF classic THE SNOW QUEEN was partially inspired by the Finnish myth cycle, the Kalevala. Moon Dawntreader Summer is a sibyl, a human conduit to a vast interplanetary information network. She is also the Queen of the planet Tiamat, and the guardian of a secret so important she literally cannot speak it aloud: Tiamat is the location of the artificial intelligence that regulates the sibyl network. It is Moon's task to keep the location secret and safe; and preserve the mers, the sentient sea-creatures who maintain the machine, from those who would slaughter them for their blood, the chief ingredient in a life-prolonging drug. Her task is made far more difficult when a new discovery in space travel makes the previously near-impossible voyage between Tiamat and the technologically superior worlds of the Hegemony a simple matter. And with the return of the Hegemony to Tiamat comes the man who made that discovery--Moon's former lover, BZ Gundhalinu.
Tangled Up in Blue Tangled Up in Blue by Joan D. Vinge ( 2001)

By-the-book BZ Gundhalinu teams up with renegade cop Nyx LaisTree and Devony Seaward, a beautiful prostitute, to uncover corruption within the Tiamat forces. By the author of Catspaw and The Snow Queen. Reprint.
Tarzan, King of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Joan D. Vinge ( 1983)

A baby boy, left alone in the African jungle after the deaths of his parents, Lord and Lady Greystoke, is adopted by an ape, whose own infant has died, and raised to manhood without ever seeing another human being.
Willow Based on the Motion Picture by George Lucas, Joan D. Vinge, Bob Dolman ( 1988)

In a magical land, a poor farmer is entrusted with the care of an infant who is destined to become a good and wise queen and bring about the downfall of the evil sorceress who is the present queen.
Lady Halcon/Ladyhawke by Joan D. Vinge ( 1985)

Based on the ancient legend of Lady Isabeau and Charles of Navarre, this saga of magic, romance, and adventure chronicles the exploits of two lovers, cursed by an evil bishop to wander the earth as a hawk and a wolf, to overcome the spell.
World's End by Joan D. Vinge ( 1984)

In the sequel to "The Snow Queen", an outcast policeman embarks on a trip to the wasteland known as World's End, little aware that his journey will affect the future ascension to the throne of the Summer Queen.

Sign up to receive offers and updates: