So, how many novels did Paul Edwin Zimmer write?

This shouldn't be a tough question, one would think, but it is. For this problem we have his many collaborations and the demands of the publishing industry to thank. The Internet Speculative Fiction Database clearly lists eight novels in total. But PEZ's brother, Marion Zimmer Bradley, also says that Zimmer wrote nine novels in her introduction to his story in Sword and Sorceress XV, and she would know, right?  Problem is, I'm having a hard time getting my math to add up. So here goes . . . . 

The novels that unquestionably belong to PEZ are, of course, those books with his name on the cover. But even these aren't that simple. Let's start with his solo works:


#1 & #2: The Dark Border, vol. 1 & vol. 2

  • The Lost Prince (1982)
  • King Chondos' Ride (1982)
#3A Gathering of Heroes (1987)
#4Ingulf the Mad (1989)

These are all PEZ's Dark Border novels, and technically we got 4 books here. The tricky part is that The Dark Border is actually one novel split into two parts -- his publishers refused to publish a 700-page novel by a first-time novelist, so split them up. The same thing happened to Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, albeit for different reasons -- Unwin wanted the extra set of reviews on a work he felt sure would be a money-loser. Anyway, we'll just count The Dark Border as two books cuz that seems easiest.

Then we have a few clearly marked collaborations:


#5: The Survivors  (1979) w/ Marion Zimmer Bradley

#6: The Blood of Colyn Muir  (1988) w/ Jon DeCles, pseudonym of Don Studebaker

Okay, so we're clearly up to six. To this list of collaborations we can also add


#7Hunters of the Red Moon (1973) w/ Marion Zimmer Bradley


PEZ's name never appeared on the original 1973 cover because DAW books only wanted Bradley's name on its, but Bradley later said -- in her brother's intro in the Greyhaven anthology -- that PEZ wrote about 1/3 of it and deserved an author credit. Anyway, most people acknowledge this collaboration; it appears officially on the ISFD under Zimmer. I've seen remarks that Hunters was later reissued under both writers's names, but I've been unable to track it down. Interlibrary loan couldn't help, and Amazon doesn't have it. (I did order a book that claimed it had both authors listed, but this turned out to be inaccurate.)


So, what are Zimmer's final two novels?


Well, as sketchy as it may be as a novel, we could probably add the following:


#8Woman of the Elfmounds (1980)


Of course, that's a chapbook, maybe even a short novella, but by no stretch of the imagination should it be considered a novel. Nonetheless, it seems to be part of Zimmer's alleged nine. ISFD certainly counts it as such. Anyway, for the sole purpose of getting up to "nine," we have to go with it.


None more problems emerge, though, ISFD, as mentioned, stops at eight -- and we've mentioned all eight. A website called fantasticfiction.com does cite nine novels written, the last one being a collaboration of Stormqueen! with Bradley. I'm skeptical, though, since it incorrectly states that PEZ edited the Greyhaven anthology, and I could find no independent verfication.


My best guess for the ninth alleged novel, then, is this:


#9The Spell Sword  (1974) w/ Marion Zimmer Bradley


In the Greyhaven anthology, Bradley very clearly states that PEZ helped her with the fight scenes in this novel. Cut and dry, right? Well, it should be, but then again I don't understand why nobody ever lists or discusses that novel as a collaboration. Unlike Hunters, which multiple sources have confirmed is a collaboration, absolutely no one outside Bradley in that one introduction mentioned Spell Sword. We could say, perhaps, "Well, Bradley thought Paul deserved a writer's credit on Hunters but thought that his contribution to Spell Sword was substantive enough."*** But then why did she state he wrote nine novels in the S&S anthology?


It's a bit of a puzzle. Still, I'm pretty confident we can stick with this list of nine.  Only . . . well, according to a wikipedia entry presumably written by someone close to Zimmer, PEZ apparently left a novel unpublished upon his death, The King Who Was of Old.


So I wonder if that might not be part of Bradley's "nine"? She might have been jumping the boat a bit, assuming King would find a publisher. This idea is nice, since it means we wouldn't have to count PEZ's chapbook as a novel. 


Or, maybe, Bradley was counting King Who Was of Old and Woman of the Elfmounds as novels, but excluding The Spell Sword. This theory is nice because (1) I can't find anything that states that Bradley believed her brother deserved an author credit, and (2) nobody among the Greyhaven circle seems to credit PEZ as an author for this work.


So, ultimately Zimmer between 7-10 novels, depending on if:


(a) we count The Dark Border as one novel or two

(b) we count Woman of the Elfmounds as a novel instead of a chapbook
(c) we count The Spell Sword as a collaboration*****
(d) we count the unpublished The King Who Was of Old as a novel.

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***Possibly bolstering this point is the Spell Sword came out a year after Hunters, implying that Bradley was comfortable giving credit where credit was deserved. Still, her Greyhaven introduction seems to suggest that, while Spell Sword was published a year after Hunters, it may have been written prior.

***** Actually, I'm now leaning against The Spell Sword as an official PEZ novel, and now I'm more inclined to attribute The King Who Was of Old as one of the "nine" novels Marion said her brother wrote. My reasoning can be found in this addendum.


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