Janny Wurts

Janny Wurts is an American fantasy author and illustrator best known for co-writing the Empire Trilogy with Raymond E. Feist, which retells the interdimensional Riftwar from the perspective of the Tsurani side of the conflict through Mara of the Acoma, a teenage girl forced to become Ruling Lady of a nearly destroyed noble house after her father and brother are killed in battle. Where Feist's own Riftwar Saga is fairly traditional Western sword-and-sorcery, the Empire books are court-intrigue political fantasy built around Kelewan's rigid, honor-bound social structure, and the trilogy is widely regarded by readers and critics as some of the strongest material in the entire Riftwar Cycle. Beyond her collaboration with Feist, Wurts is a prolific solo author, best known for the eleven-volume Wars of Light and Shadow series, an epic fantasy saga she has written and illustrated (she trained as a professional artist and has provided cover art for much of her own fiction) across several decades, known for its unusually intricate, morally ambiguous conflict between two central rival characters. Wurts is respected within the genre both for the scope and internal consistency of her long-running solo work and for the distinct, character-driven political sensibility she brought to her collaboration with Feist on the Empire Trilogy.