Biography

Philip Athans was born in 1964 in Rochester, New York

Rochester, New York

Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...

, but was raised in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

. Athans grew up reading Marvel

Marvel Comics

Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...

 comics and Starlog

Starlog

Starlog was a monthly science-fiction film magazine published by Starlog Group Inc. The magazine was created by publishers Kerry O'Quinn and Norman Jacobs. O'Quinn was the magazine's editor while Jacobs ran the business side of things, dealing with typesetters, engravers and printers. They got...

magazines, and watching Star Trek

Star Trek

Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...

. He graduated from film school in 1985 and started small circulation literary magazine called Alternative Fiction & Poetry.

Although Athans used to work in a record store while working on his writing career in his spare time, he was taken on in the book publising department of TSR

TSR, Inc.

Blume and Gygax, the remaining owners, incorporated a new company called TSR Hobbies, Inc., with Blume and his father, Melvin Blume, owning the larger share. The former assets of the partnership were transferred to TSR Hobbies, Inc....

 in 1995, and survived the transition to Wizards of the Coast

Wizards of the Coast

Wizards of the Coast is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games...

. In 1997, Athans became Managing Editor for Wizards of the Coast Book Publishing, where he has spent most of his time as the Forgotten Realms

Forgotten Realms

The Forgotten Realms is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Commonly referred to by players and game designers alike as "The Realms", it was created by game designer Ed Greenwood around 1967 as a setting for his childhood stories...

 novel line editor. There he has edited dozens of anthologies and novels, and continues to write his own. He wrote some of the first Forgotten Realms books as well as many others like Lies of the Light in 2006 and Realms of War in 2008. He is well-known for writing the novelizations of the computer games, Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn

Baldur's Gate 2: The Shadows of Amn

Baldur's Gate 2: The Shadows of Amn was a novel by Philip Athans based on the videogame of the same name from BioWare and Interplay. It follows a Bhaalspawn named Abdel Adrian who has awful powers to kill and destroy like Bhaal himself. The story takes place in the Forgotten Realms...

. His most recent works are the three novels in the Watercourse Trilogy.

Forgotten Realms: Baldur's Gate series

• Baldur's Gate
  Baldur's Gate
  Baldur's Gate is a computer role-playing game developed by BioWare and released in 1998 by Interplay Entertainment. The game takes place in the Forgotten Realms, a high fantasy campaign setting, using modified Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition rules...
  
  (1999)
• Baldur's Gate 2: The Shadows of Amn
  Baldur's Gate 2: The Shadows of Amn
  Baldur's Gate 2: The Shadows of Amn was a novel by Philip Athans based on the videogame of the same name from BioWare and Interplay. It follows a Bhaalspawn named Abdel Adrian who has awful powers to kill and destroy like Bhaal himself. The story takes place in the Forgotten Realms...
  
  (2000)

Forgotten Realms: The Watercourse Trilogy

• Whispers of the Waves (2005)
• Lies of the Light (2006)
• Scream of Stone (2007)

Other novels

• The Savage Caves (under the pseudonym T.H. Lain) (2002)
• The Halls of Stormweather (Gateway to Sembia) (2007)

External links

• Biography at Wizards of the Coast
  Wizards of the Coast
  Wizards of the Coast is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games...