Because his editor insisted that no one would believe his real name was Harry Norman Turtledove (1949– ), the author’s first novels, Wereblood (1979) and Werenight (1979), were published under the pseudonym Eric G. Iverson, a name he continued to use until 1985, after which he used his own name for dozens of novels and short stories.
Working in several subgenres of speculative fiction, including science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, and alternate history, Turtledove is a prolific author, with about one hundred fifty short stories and nearly one hundred novels to his credit, many of the novels being gathered in series. Among his most successful are Videssos (1987–2005), including a cycle of novels that imagines a Byzantine Empire in which one of Julius Caesar’s legions exists in a land in which the rules of magic apply to normal life. His Darkness series (1999–2004) also employs the premise of magic existing but is set mainly against a background of global war in medieval Europe. Magic also exists in the War Between the Provinces trilogy (2000–2002), based on the American Civil War but with the positions of the North and South reversed.
Turtledove has received too many honors to count, including three Hugo nominations (winning for best novella in 1994 with “Down in the Bottomlands”) and two Nebula nominations; he has been named the guest of honor at more than thirty science fiction and fantasy conventions.
“Gentleman of the Shade” was first published in Ripper!, edited by Gardner Dozois and Susan Casper (New York, Tom Doherty Associates, 1988).