Dave Freer

Dave Freer
Born1959 (age 66–67)
South Africa
OccupationsNovelist, short story author
Writing career
Period1999–present
GenreScience fiction
Websitewww.davefreer.com

Dave Freer is a South African–born, Australian-based, award-winning science fiction author writing mostly humorous or alternate history novels.

Biography

Freer was born and educated in South Africa, where he grew up on the outskirts of a city next to a 500-acre nature preserve of coastal bush. His father worked as a member on a commercial fishing boat on weekends. After a stint in boarding school, where he learned "smoking, strong drink and pursuit of wild women", he was conscripted at the age of 17 into the South African Defence Force and deployed to the Angolan border as a medic (his last choice). Recalling the experience, he noted, "My choices were five years in jail, leave the country, or go in for a year. I'm a strong swimmer, but the Atlantic seemed too large...."

The year stretched into two. Following his service, he married, attended university, and became an ichthyologist, later working as a research officer for the Western Cape commercial shark fishery. To supplement his income and alleviate the monotony of writing "amazingly dull" papers on fishery matters, he moonlighted as a commercial diver for a mussel farm. He eventually managed a fish farm, but after the operation was forced to close due to circumstances beyond his control, he began to pursue a careen in write. Six years and 74 rejections later, his first book, The Forlorn, was published by Baen Books.

Dave is an experienced rock-climber and has opened many routes near Morgan's Bay in the Eastern Cape (South Africa). His other interests include cooking, wine tasting, fly-fishing and diving.

For many years he lived near Mount West in the Kwa-Zulu Natal Midlands with his wife, Barbara, and two sons, Paddy and James. In early 2010 he and his wife emigrated to Flinders Island, in the Australian state of Tasmania. He and his family are now naturalized Australians.

Dave has his own forum at Baen's Bar, a website, and a blog about "the Freer Family's adventures and misadventures emigrating to Flinders Island". His literary agent in the United States is the OnyxHawk agency.

Awards

His 2008 Novel, Slow Train to Arcturus, won the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Novel in the Preditors & Editors Readers Poll 2008.

In 2022 he published Cloud-Castles, which won a Prometheus Award.

His 2025 novel Storm-Dragon won a Prometheus Special Award for Young Adult Fiction.

Bibliography

Drowned World

This young adult steampunk is set in an alternate 1970s earth where one scientific discovery was never made leading to massive global warming.

ISBN 978-1616146252

ISBN 978-1616146924

Assiti Shards Universe

163x series

  • A Lineman for the Country novella in Ring of Fire (Baen 2004) 0-7434-7175-X
  • Diving Belle novella in Ring of Fire II (Baen 2008) 978-1416591443 with Gunnar Dahlin

Dragon's Ring series

  1. Dragon's Ring (Baen 2009) 978-1-4391-3319-4
  2. Dog and Dragon (Baen 2012) 978-1-4516-3811-0

Fish Story series

Short stories.

  1. Fish Story, Episode 1 (2006) with Andrew Dennis and Eric Flint
  2. Fish Story, Episode 2 (2006) with Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis
  3. Fish Story, Episode 3 (2006) with Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis
  4. Fish Story, Episode 4 (2006) with Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis
  5. Fish Story, Episode 5 (2007) with Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis
  6. Fish Story, Episode 6 (2007) with Andrew Dennis and Eric Flint
  7. Fish Story, Episode 7: We're Going to Need a Bigger Pub (2007) with Andrew Dennis and Eric Flint
  8. Fish Story, Episode 8: The Yellow Sub... (2007) with Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis
  9. Fish Story, Episode Nine: Love at First Bite (2007) with Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis
  10. Fish Story, Episode Ten: The A-Team (2007) with Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis
  11. Fish Story, Episode Eleven, The End of Mankind (2008) with Andrew Dennis and Eric Flint
  12. Fish Story, Episode Twelve: Make It More Complicated (2008) with Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis
  13. Fish Story, Episode Thirteen, The Plot to End the Universe (2008) with Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis
  14. Fish Story, Episode Fourteen, Punctiphobia: An Inordinate Fear of Spots (2008) with Andrew Dennis and Eric Flint
  15. Fish Story, Episode Fifteen: They Came from Beyond (2008) with Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis

Heirs of Alexandria series

With Eric Flint and Mercedes Lackey. Set in an alternate "Venetian Empire" in which magic thrives. Note: a significant amount of text, and a couple of major characters in this work, are adapted from stories written by Lackey in the Merovingen Nights shared universe series. That series was started by C. J. Cherryh in her novel Angel with the Sword.

  1. The Shadow of the Lion (Baen 2002) 0-7434-3523-0
  2. This Rough Magic (Baen 2003) 0-7434-7149-0
  3. A Mankind Witch (Baen 2005) 0-7434-9913-1
  4. Much Fall of Blood (Baen 2010) 978-1-4391-3351-4
  5. Burdens of the Dead (Baen 2013) 978-1-4516-3874-5
  6. All the Plagues of Hell (Baen 2018) 978-1-4814-8361-2

Karres series

Expands the characters and situations in the novel The Witches of Karres by James H. Schmitz (1966) into a series.

Pyramid series

  1. Pyramid Scheme (Baen 2001) 0-671-31839-X
  2. Pyramid Power (Baen 2007) 978-1-4165-2130-3

Rat, Bats and Vats series

  1. Rats, Bats and Vats (Baen 2000) 0-671-31940-X
  2. The Rats, the Bats and the Ugly (Baen 2004) 0-7434-8846-6

Novels and novellas

Short stories

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Prometheus Award winners announced" (Press release). Libertarian Futurist Society. 9 July 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Dave Freer's website.
  3. ↑ Dave Freer (27 January 2020). "An Alternate Australia?". madgenousclub.com.
  4. ↑ "Baen's Bar". Archived from the original on 14 April 2012. Retrieved 30 September 2013.
  5. ↑ Flinders Family Freer blog.
  6. ↑ OnyxHawke Agency – Dave Freer's Agent.
  7. ↑ "Preditors & Editors Awards". Archived from the original on 5 February 2009. Retrieved 6 February 2009.
  8. ↑ Standings for category: Science Fiction & Fantasy Novels, Preditors & Editors Awards.
  9. ↑ Baen Books
  10. ↑ "2026 Prometheus Best Novel Award Finalists Announced". Libertarian Futurist Society. 14 April 2026. Retrieved 19 April 2026.