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Robert H. Boyer

Goodreads Author

Born

in Philadelphia, The United States

Website

http://www.sundaysinmanila.com

Genre

Fantasy, Travel, Biography

Influences

Medieval Literature, in particular Chaucer, Arthurian Romance, and Ara ...more

Member Since

November 2007

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/robertboyersncedu

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Bob Boyer, A Mercifully Brief Introduction:

I have recently completed work on the second and enhanced edition of THE MAGIC NECKLACE OF AL-ANDALUS. It will be out in 2021. The following biography highlights my personal and professional background from which this novel and my earlier work spring.

Reading, writing, traveling, and teaching Have always attracted me. Being a teacher has enabled me to combine all four activities, with my first love being teaching. When I was a freshman at La Salle High School in my hometown of Philadelphia, I decided that I would be a teacher. I have never looked back.

I retired in 2005, after forty-four years of teaching: four years in high school, three years as a graduate teaching assistant, and the last thirty- Bob Boyer, A Mercifully Brief Introduction:

I have recently completed work on the second and enhanced edition of THE MAGIC NECKLACE OF AL-ANDALUS. It will be out in 2021. The following biography highlights my personal and professional background from which this novel and my earlier work spring.

Reading, writing, traveling, and teaching Have always attracted me. Being a teacher has enabled me to combine all four activities, with my first love being teaching. When I was a freshman at La Salle High School in my hometown of Philadelphia, I decided that I would be a teacher. I have never looked back.

I retired in 2005, after forty-four years of teaching: four years in high school, three years as a graduate teaching assistant, and the last thirty-six years teaching English at St. Norbert College in Northeastern Wisconsin. I still enjoy teaching occasionally, most recently in the Learning for Life Program at the University of Wisconsin Green Bay. I remain connected with St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin.

Teaching has afforded me opportunities for travel, often with my family. I have taught in Canton, Ohio, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in Phoenix, Arizona, in Philadelphia, and in Northeastern, Wisconsin. I was fortunate to earn a fellowship to study at Oxford University in England, with my wife and four children along. Later on, courses that I taught, or research that I did, took me to Nicaragua (during their civil war), to El Salvador (just after their civil war), twice to Spain, and six times to the Philippines. I spent two sabbatical semesters in Spain (my thanks to St. Norbert College), and I was a Visiting Professor in Manila, the Philippines, for a memorable semester. A friend referred to me as “an adventurer.”

The teaching and travel have resulted in a number of books. Prior to THE MAGIC NECKLACE OF AL-ANDALUS, my most recent book was SUNDAYS IN MANILA, a travel memoir based on my experiences in the Philippines. That country and the many friends and acquaintances I have made there keeps drawing me back. I also write a monthly column for “VIA TIMES Newsmagazine,” a Philippine-American publication out of Chicago. You can find me, including a recent picture, on their web site (www.viatimes.com). All of my earlier books are edited collections of Fantasy Literature or are about Fantasy Literature and some of the people who write it. You can find many of these books listed in my Goodreads Author Profile.

THE MAGIC NECKLACE OF AL-ANDALUS is my first original work of fiction. It is a Historical Fantasy Novel set primarily in medieval Spain during the height of the Arab Ascendancy there from the 10th through the 12th Centuries. The story has been percolating in my mind and imagination ever since I was a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania and studied Medieval European Literature, which then covered mainly British literature and its Italian and French influences.

I continued to enjoy and later to teach medieval literature but with a growing sense of uneasiness with its antisemitism and bitter crusades against Islam. The antisemitism was more disturbing to me than the conflict with Islam; Islam was a foe, sometimes even cast as a noble foe in a war in which its heroes could occasionally be victorious. Once, in a moment of perhaps guilty frustration about these matters, I visited a medieval history friend and colleague and asked him, "was there ever a time when Jews, Muslims, and Christians actually got along together?" His answer: "Yes, medieval Spain during the Arab Ascendancy. You should go there." I did, and THE MAGIC NECKLACE OF AL-ANDALUS is the result.

Finally I owe whatever success I have achieved as teacher and writer to my family, especially my wife of 56 years, who has been my best audience, inspiration, and critic.
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Robert H. Boyer’s books

Average rating: 3.83 · 236 ratings · 37 reviews · 10 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Fantastic Imagination: An Anthology of High Fantasy by Robert H. Boyer (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Kenneth J. Zahorski (Editor) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 59 ratings — published 1977 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dark Imaginings by Robert H. Boyer (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Kenneth J. Zahorski (Editor) 3.71 avg rating — 34 ratings — published 1978 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Fantastic Imagination II by Robert H. Boyer (Goodreads Author), Kenneth J. Zahorski (Editor) 3.86 avg rating — 28 ratings — published 1978 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Phoenix Tree: An Anthology of Myth Fantasy by Robert H. Boyer (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Kenneth J. Zahorski (Editor) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 27 ratings — published 1980 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Fantasists on Fantasy: A collection of Critical Reflections by Eighteen Masters of the Art by Robert H. Boyer (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Kenneth J. Zahorski 3.71 avg rating — 28 ratings — published 1984 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Sundays in Manila 3.67 avg rating — 24 ratings — published 2011 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Magic Necklace of Al-Andalus: A Novel 3.86 avg rating — 21 ratings — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Visions of Wonder: An Anthology of Christian Fantasy by Robert H. Boyer (Goodreads Author) (Editor), Kenneth J. Zahorski (Editor) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 1981 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Fantasy literature: A core collection and reference guide by Marshall B. Tymn, Kenneth J. Zahorski, Robert H. Boyer (Goodreads Author) 3.40 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 1979	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Visions and Imaginings by Robert H. Boyer (Goodreads Author), Kenneth J. Zahorski 3.25 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 1992 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Robert H. Boyer's Blog

Reading Announcement

Dear Goodreads Friends,

Sorry for the last minute notice. Wanted to let you know about the reading tomorrow, Monday, June 4, at 6 p.m. at the Kress Family Library in De Pere by Scott Winkler, Ed Risden, and me. Each of us will read for 20 minutes, followed by questions/discussion, followed by signings and minglings. Peregrino Press has published all three books, so we are dubbing ourselves "The Thr Read more of this blog post »

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Published on June 03, 2018 20:12 • Tags: contemporary, fantasy, history

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Robert’s Quotes

“Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

tags: humor

5170 likes

“Child, child, do you not see? For each of us comes a time when we must be more than what we are.”
― Lloyd Alexander, The Black Cauldron

2146 likes

“But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more.”
― Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid

4212 likes

“Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply; and it must be by a long and unnatural estrangement, by a divorce which no subsequent connection can justify, if such precious remains of the earliest attachments are ever entirely outlived.”
― Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

tags: family, inspirational

15 likes

“What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.”
― Jane Austen

146 likes

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