John Eric Holmes

Mahars of Pellucidar by John Eric Holmes, Ace Books, 1976, cover art by Boris Vallejo.

John Eric Holmes, M.D. (born 1930), is a former associate professor of neurology at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, an author and promoter of fantasy role-playing games, a noted fan and enthusiast of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and an American writer of non-fiction and science fiction. His writings have appeared under his full name and under variants such as Eric Holmes and J. Eric Holmes. Holmes's non-fiction relates to both his chosen profession and the role-playing game phenomenon. He is a one-time editor of the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set RPG rule book. His science fiction consists of two pastiches of the Pellucidar novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, the Buck Rogers novel Mordred, and The Maze of Peril, an original fantasy novel featuring and Dungeons & Dragons-like scenario. 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. Holmes is 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.

Bibliography

Fiction

• Mahars of Pellucidar (ISBN 0-441-51590-8) (1976)
• Mordred (ISBN 0-441-54220-4) (1980)
• The Maze of Peril (ISBN 0-917053-05-2) (1986)
• Red Axe of Pellucidar (1993)

Nonfiction

• Fantasy Role Playing Games - Dungeons, Dragons and Adventures in Fantasy Gaming (ISBN 0-88254-514-0) (1981)
• Basic human neurophysiology (ISBN 0-444-00797-0) (1984 - as co-editor with David F. Lindsley)

Articles

• "Brain Waves and Thought Patterns" in Analog Science Fact -> Science Fiction, July 1962
• "The Educated Flatworms" in Analog Science Fact -> Science Fiction, November 1962
• "The Split Brain" in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact, August 1974
• "Confessions of a Dungeon Master," in Psychology Today, v. 14, no. 6 (Nov. 1980), pp. 84-94.

External links

• John Eric Holmes: Mahars of Pellucidar and Red Axe of Pellucidar - article by John Martin