Adrian Christopher Synnot Cole (born 22 July 1949 in Plymouth, England), is a British writer.[1] He is known for his Dream Lords trilogy, the Omaran Saga and Star Requiem series, and his young adult novels, Moorstones and The Sleep of Giants.
He first read The Lord of the Rings in the late 1960s while working in a public library in Birmingham, and was inspired by the book to write an epic entitled "The Barbarians," which was eventually revised into The Dream Lords trilogy, published by Zebra Books in the early 1970s.[2] He began writing various ghost, horror, and fantasy tales, which he sold to various anthologies and magazines, and he had 4 novels published in England by Robert Hale.[2] The novel Madness Emerging had a distinctly Lovecraftian flavour, set in a small Cornish village (based on one in which he had lived for 5 years) overrun by an alien force.[2] He then had two "young adults" fantasy novels published in England, Moorstones and The Sleep of Giants, the first one set on Dartmoor, the second in the South West.[2] A number of fantasy series followed, including The Omaran Saga and Star Requiem, as well as the novelizations of his stories about the Voidal, a S&S character and his elemental sidekick, Elfloq the Familiar.[2] He edited a collection of Lin Carter's short stories about Thongor of Lemuria and the book, Young Thongor.[2] His novel Night of the Heroes envisions various superheroes forming an unlikely union to battle an evil genius.[3]
Cole has worked as a librarian, an administrator in education, and Director of Resources in a large secondary college in the town of Bideford, North Devon, where he lives with his wife Judy, son Sam, and daughter Katia in an old blacksmith's forge.[2]