John Eric Holmes - Writing Career

Writing Career

Holmes's non-fiction relates to both his chosen profession and the role-playing game phenomenon. He was a one-time editor of the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set RPG rule book. His fantasy consists of a series set in a D&D-influenced world, including four short stories and one novel, while his science fiction includes two pastiches of the Pellucidar novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Buck Rogers novel Mordred.

The first of his Pellucidar pastiches, Mahars of Pellucidar was authorized by the Burroughs estate, but it reportedly blocked his follow-up novel, Red Axe of Pellucidar. Ready for publication in 1980, it only saw print thirteen years later in a private printing. A planned third novel in the series remained unwritten.

Other writing projects included two unfinished novels, one a collaboration with Burroughs' son John Coleman Burroughs, whom he helped treat for Parkinson's disease, and the other a "Conan the Barbarian" novel contracted and paid for by Tor Books but later canceled.

Holmes was a regular guest at Burroughs fan conventions such as the Edgar Rice Burroughs Chain of Friendship (ECOF). He received its Lifetime Achievement Award for his Burroughs pastiches at ECOF '93 in Willows, California. He was slated to appear as Guest of Honor at 2004's ECOF Convention in Sacramento, California, but suffered a stroke and was unable to attend. He was a special guest at the June 2005 ECOF in Portland, Oregon.