The Masterworks of Charles M. Russell (By: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,Joan Carpenter Troccoli,Thomas Gilcrease,Joan Troccoli,Lewis I. Sharp,Duane H. King)
Kate Elliott is the pseudonym used by the successful American author Alis A. Rasmussen for writing interesting novels based on the science fiction, romance, young adult, and fantasy genres. She has flourished in her writing career with a number of widely popular novel series’. Kate was born in the year 1958 in Junction City, Oregon, United States. In the beginning, she used to write science fiction novels under her original name. But, after a few moderate successes, the publishers stopped publishing her novels as they were looking for fresh name. Hence, Rasmussen became Kate Elliott in the year 1992 and began writing fantasy novels. This move brought a lot of success in her career as she went on to make huge sales of her novel copies. Kate is particularly famous for writing down the Crown of Stars series and the Jaran series. Apart from these novel series’, she has written a dew other series’ as well. After being born and raised in Junction City, Oregon, she shifted to Oakland, California after growing up and joined to the Mills College for completing her academic studies.
While studying at the college, Kate became an active member of the Society for Creative Anachronism and also pursued medieval style sword fighting. As of today, Kate has become successful in establishing herself as a noteworthy author. She also considers herself blessed to have a loving husband in the form of Jay Silverstein. They live together in Hawaii, where Kate continues to write her latest plots of science fiction and fantasy novels. As far as the beginning of her writing career is concerned, Kate says that she began writing stories at the age of nine. Since then, she has become so much fond of writing that she considers it to be necessary in order to stay alive, like breathing. During her growing days in rural Oregon, Kate used to escape into an imaginary world of lurid adventure and used to make stories about whatever fiction she remembered from her dreams. Her husband Jay met her for the first time at Mills College, while she was practicing her sword fighting skills. After giving up his job as a cop, he took up archaeology, due to which Kate’s family was forced to move to Hawaii. When not busy with her writing works, she likes to enjoy doing canoe paddling along with her three children.
One of the novel series written by Kate Elliott is the Jaran series, which consists of a total of 4 books published between the years 1992 and 1994. The first novel of the series was published by the DAW publishing house in the year 1992. It was titled as ‘Jaran’ and featured the main character named Tess Soerensen. Tess lives in an alien-controlled galaxy, where she tries to find her love and life, but is held back due to the revolutionary fate of her brother. The plot of the novel opens in a future time frame, in which Earth as well as the other planets of the galaxy are ruled by the huge Chapalii empire, consisting of aliens. Tess is very well familiar with the volatility of the aliens of the Chapalii empire. She has seen the fate of her brother Charles, who had revolted against them at one point of time and was elevated into the interstellar system of the empire as a reward. Despite this, there are possible reasons to believe that they killed his parents. Tess struggles to find a place to live a peaceful life in the world full of aliens. She boards a shuttle which is bound for Rhui, in order to find a way to mend her broken heart. Rhui is one of the planets ruled by her brother, where the native people are called as the jarans.
After reaching there, Tess joins the jaran people and gets immersed in their nomadic style of living. She begins to follow all the customs and rituals of heir society, while still trying to get to the bottom of deal related to smuggling, that she came across during her journey. After several turns of events, Tess begins to get closer to the charismatic ruler of the jaran people, Ilya. He seems to be busy with one of his own urgent missions, due to which Tess finds herself in a dilemma whether to accept her feelings for Ilya or go for the loyalty of her brother. The second novel of the series was also published by the DAW publishing house in the year 1993. It was titled ‘An Earthly Crown’ and continued to feature the struggling life of the main character named Tess Soerensen, in a world ruled by the aliens of the Chapalii empire. Just like in the first novel of the series, she finds herself pulled between the two of the most powerful men in her life, her brother Charles and her charismatic husband Ilya Bakhtiian, in the second novel too. The two men always indulge in competing revolutions due to which Tess is not able to think which side she should choose.
In the opening sequence of the plot of the novel, the jaran people of the Rhui planet are depicted as trying to unite the settled cities in their homeland one after the other. They are ruled by a charismatic ruler named Ilya Bakhtiian. Ilya married Tess Soerensen after making her fall in love with him and now has her by her side as a loyal wife. However, he is not aware of he fact that she is a human. He is also unaware of her relationship with her brother Charles, who had once revolted against the powerful Chapalii empire unsuccessfully. Even though he went on to become a duke in their interstellar system, his revolutionary intentions had not faded away. Now, he travels to the planet of Rhui in order to locate her sister Tes and also uncover some precious information about an insurgency that had taken place in the past. On one hand, Charles insists on making Tess join his side, and on the other hand, Ilya seems to be equally reluctant to part ways with her loyal and beloved wife. None of them consider the fact that Tess nurtures her own plans, which are different from theirs, about her future. All the three of them struggle fiercely to find a solution, due to which the fates of the jaran and human races hangs in the dark.
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Just read one of your books and thoroughly enjoyed it. Is there a company in Britain who supplies them?
Hi there,
My book Traitors’ Gate says that there will be a fourth book called Crossroads, but I can’t find a reference to it now.
Thanks Karen Cunningham
Hi Karen – Only 3 books were ever released in that series.