John Ames

I met John Ames at another New Orleans SF con, probably around 1990 or so. I remember that he was the only guy there with hair longer than mine, and the first writer I’d ever seen with groupies. (Well, one groupie, at least.) He was also already well established as a writer, mostly as John Edward Ames with horror novels such as Spellcaster and Death Crystal. Later, John made his livelihood primarily from westerns, including three well received works under his own name and various series books under house names. His most enjoyable series work, to my way of thinking, was for his Cheyenne books, which are told from the Indian point of view and which he wrote under the name Judd Cole. All told, he’s written over sixty novels, in four different genres--historical, horror, romance, and western--and he’s written under such pseudonyms as Jon Sharpe and Dodge Tyler. He has also written numerous short stories. John is able to write both quickly and well, something I’ve never been able to achieve.