{"id":43677,"date":"2026-03-12T06:30:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T17:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=43677"},"modified":"2026-03-08T18:33:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T05:33:20","slug":"in-memoriam-ru-emerson-1944-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2026\/03\/12\/in-memoriam-ru-emerson-1944-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"In Memoriam: Ru Emerson, 1944 &#8211; 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In preparing Monday&#8217;s post, which refeatured an earlier SF Signal post on Elfrid, the heroine of Ru Emerson&#8217;s debut novel, <strong><em>The Princess of Flames<\/em><\/strong> (1986), I discovered that the author passed away in August of last year.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-18354\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Princess-of-Flames-174x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"174\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Princess-of-Flames-174x300.jpg 174w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Princess-of-Flames-87x150.jpg 87w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Princess-of-Flames.jpg 276w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 174px) 100vw, 174px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As you&#8217;ve doubtless already figured out, I&#8217;m a fan of <em>The Princess of Flames<\/em>, but I also enjoyed her <strong>Tales of Nedao<\/strong> trilogy:<\/p>\n<p><em>To the Haunted Mountains<\/em> (1987)<\/p>\n<p><em>In the Caves of Exile<\/em>\u00a0(1988) <em>and\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>On the Seas of Destiny<\/em>\u00a0(1989)<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-43678\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/To-The-Haunted-Mountains-186x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"186\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/To-The-Haunted-Mountains-186x300.jpg 186w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/To-The-Haunted-Mountains-93x150.jpg 93w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/To-The-Haunted-Mountains.jpg 294w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 186px) 100vw, 186px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Ru Emerson also wrote another standalone novel, <em>The Sword and The Lion<\/em> (1993), under the pen name Roberta Cray, which still has a place of honour on my bookshelves.<\/p>\n<p>These do not comprise all her works, but are the ones by which I knew her, and considered her a Fantasy &#8220;name.&#8221; Her stories enriched my reading life and her passing leaves a notable gap in the Fantasy pantheon.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-35959\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Sword-Lion-front-port-183x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"183\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Sword-Lion-front-port-183x300.jpg 183w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Sword-Lion-front-port-92x150.jpg 92w, https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Sword-Lion-front-port.jpg 540w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 183px) 100vw, 183px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In preparing Monday&#8217;s post, which refeatured an earlier SF Signal post on Elfrid, the heroine of Ru Emerson&#8217;s debut novel, The Princess of Flames (1986), I discovered that the author passed away in August of last year. As you&#8217;ve doubtless already figured out, I&#8217;m a fan of The Princess of Flames, but I also enjoyed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-epicfantasy","category-other-writers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43677"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43681,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43677\/revisions\/43681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}