Quick Facts
Biography
John Eric Holmes M.D. (February 16, 1930 – March 20, 2010) was an associate professor of neurology at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, an author and promoter of fantasy role-playing games, a noted fan and enthusiast of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and an American writer of non-fiction, fantasy and science fiction. His father, Wilfred "Jasper" Holmes was also a writer of adventure stories under the pen name Alec Hudson. His writings appeared under his full name and under variants such as Eric Holmes and J. Eric Holmes and the pen name Sidney Leland.
Writing career
Holmes's non-fiction relates to both his chosen profession and the role-playing game phenomenon. He was a one-time editor of the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set RPG rule book. His fantasy consists of a series set in a D&D-influenced world, including four short stories and one novel, while his science fiction includes two pastiches of the Pellucidar novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Buck Rogers novel Mordred.
Holmes was the author of the Pellucidar pastiche called Mahars of Pellucidar. The first of his Pellucidar pastiches, Mahars of Pellucidar was authorized by the Burroughs estate, but it reportedly blocked his follow-up novel, Red Axe of Pellucidar. Ready for publication in 1980, it only saw print thirteen years later in a private printing. A planned third novel in the series remained unwritten.
Holmes approached TSR with an offer to write an introductory version of D&D, to expand the game's demographics to younger players and possibly get it into the mass market as well. His Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (1977) was a revision of Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson's original game plus the early supplements, Greyhawk, Blackmoor, and Eldritch Wizardry. Holmes created the wereshark D&D monster, first publishing it in Alarums & Excursions #13 (July 1976).
Other writing projects included two unfinished novels, one a collaboration with Burroughs' son John Coleman Burroughs, whom he helped treat for Parkinson's disease, and the other a "Conan the Barbarian" novel contracted and paid for by Tor Books but later canceled.
Holmes was a regular guest at Burroughs fan conventions such as the Edgar Rice Burroughs Chain of Friendship (ECOF). He received its Lifetime Achievement Award for his Burroughs pastiches at ECOF '93 in Willows, California. He was slated to appear as Guest of Honor at 2004's ECOF Convention in Sacramento, California, but suffered a stroke and was unable to attend. He was a special guest at the June 2005 ECOF in Portland, Oregon.