Mel Odom (born 1957 in California) is a writer who has published more than 140 books. He is best known for his novels of science fiction and fantasy, though he has also written non-fiction about computer gaming.
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Odom graduated from Byng High School, Byng, Oklahoma, in May 1976, and later graduated with a bachelors degree in English from East Central University, Ada, Oklahoma. He teaches undergraduate courses at the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication in the Professional Writing program at the University of Oklahoma.
He's living in Oklahoma and is the father of five children.
Mel Odom sold his first book in January 1988.[1] Odom wrote dozens of books over the next ten years.[1] Odom wrote two novels for the F.R.E.E.Lancers campaign setting for TSR's Top Secret/S.I. role-playing game, F.R.E.E.Lancers and F.R.E.E.Fall.[1] He followed these with his first Forgotten Realms novel in 1998, The Lost Library of Cormanthyr, and then his Threat from the Sea trilogy.[1] By 1998, he had five children, and had begun playing an AD&D Forgotten Realms campaign with the two oldest.[1]
Odom wrote several novels in the Forgotten Realms series, including the Threat from the Sea trilogy, and two short stories as yet. He has gained renown with his The Rover and Left Behind Apocalypse series, and two novels for the NCIS franchise.
He has published original novels for popular TV shows, including Roswell and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. The most popular show for which he has written original novels is Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
He has written several Mack Bolan novels, an action-adventure series that appears under the pseudonym of Don Pendleton. He has also written novelizations of movies. These include Blade starring Wesley Snipes, xXx starring Vin Diesel, and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider starring Angelina Jolie.
One of his best known fantasy novels is The Rover (2001), which in 2002 won the Alex Award, an American Library Association award given to novels written for adults that would also appeal to young readers (see the link below). Three sequels have appeared since then: Destruction of the Books (2004), Lord of the Libraries (2005), and The Quest for the Trilogy (2007). These stories are high fantasy in the tradition of J. R. R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings.
In 2003 he published Apocalypse Dawn, which is a military spin-off of the enormously popular Left Behind Series, and Odom's book made the Christian best seller list.
Mel also writes DVD/HD DVD/Blu-ray reviews for AVRev.com.
He is known to have been writing under several pen names, among others Jordan Gray.[2]
(under pen name Don Pendleton)
(under pen name Alex Archer)
(under pen name Jordan Gray)