Christie Golden

Picture from Faces of BlizzCon 2007

Christie Golden is a Senior Writer at Blizzard. She is the author of numerous Warcraft, [Overwatch], and StarCraft works, and is an experienced writer of a wide variety of other media tie-in novels.

Background

Christie Golden was first approached by Blizzard after the cancellation of the game Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans in 1998. The storyline of the game was far too important to disregard as it set the stage for the entire Horde campaign in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. Christie Golden was then hired to write the novelization based on scripts and outlines provided by Warcraft universe co-creator, Chris Metzen, and had to be completed within six weeks. The book was released under the title Lord of the Clans about a year prior to Warcraft III. She has since then written numerous novels for the series.

On May 15, 2017, Golden announced on Twitter that she had been hired as a temp employee at Blizzard for 6 months, working in story and franchise development until early November. On October 4, 2017 she announced that she was now a full-time Blizzard employee, working as a senior writer. She thus moved from Denver, Colorado where she lived with her boyfriend and cats to Irvine, California in January 2018. As a result of becoming a permanent member of the team, she no longer writes expansion prequel novels but will continue writing other books.

She has since then written lines for the Argus the Unmaker cinematics which were already in production, and her first big contribution were the Legion Faction Epilogue cinematics, working with Terran Gregory. She was also present in the studio when they recorded the lines with the voice actors. She has also written the lyrics for the trailer of Hearthstone: Kobolds and Catacombs and Hearthstone: The Witchwood along with Andrew Robinson. Golden writes the scripts and dialogues for most of the in-game cinematics in World of Warcraft, with help from Terran Gregory.

Works

Warcraft

This section concerns content related to the original World of Warcraft.

• Lord of the Clans (2001)
• Rise of the Horde (2006)
• Beyond the Dark Portal, with Aaron Rosenberg (2008)
• Warcraft: Legends Volume 3
  • I Got What Yule Need (2009)
• Warcraft: Legends Volume 4
  • A Warrior Made--Part 1 (2009)
• Warcraft: Legends Volume 5
  • A Warrior Made--Part 2 (2009)
• Arthas: Rise of the Lich King (2009)
• The Shattering: Prelude to Cataclysm (2010)
• Chronicles of War, with Jeff Grubb and Aaron Rosenberg (2010)
• Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects (2011)
• Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War (2012)
• War Crimes (2014)
• Warcraft: Durotan, with Chris Metzen (2016)
• Warcraft: The Official Movie Novelization, with Chris Metzen (2016)
• Windrunner: Three Sisters (2018)
• Before the Storm (2018)
• Elegy (2018)
• Warcraft III: Reforged (2019, dialogue)
• Afterlives: Maldraxxus (2020)
• Rise of the Horde & Lord of the Clans: The Illustrated Novels (2020)
• Terror by Torchlight (2020)
• Exploring Azeroth: The Eastern Kingdoms (2020)

Hearthstone

This section contains information exclusive to Hearthstone and is considered non-canon.

• Hearthstone: Kobolds and Catacombs (2017, trailer lyrics with Andrew Robinson)
• Hearthstone: The Witchwood (2018, trailer lyrics with Andrew Robinson)
• Hearthstone: Rastakhan's Rumble (2018, trailer lyrics)
• The Fortune Teller
• The King

Notes and trivia

• Golden's favorite thing in Warcraft writing is goblin dialogue.
• The high elf NPC Kriss Goldenlight is a reference to Christie Golden.
• She plays on the Wyrmrest Accord server, but does not release the names of her characters. She started playing four months after the launch of WoW.
  • Two of Christie Golden's in-game characters appear in her novels. Her main, a white-haired human warlock, appeared in War Crimes and in Tides of War. Her unnamed night elven priestess also appears in War Crimes.
• Golden's work is often met with some criticism from fans about incorporating game mechanics and game scale of the world into novels.
• Golden is known for continuing the "Voyager" stories after the conclusion of the series. Under the pen name "Jadrian Bell," she wrote A.D. 999, a work of historical fantasy.

External links

Twitter.com Christie Golden's Twitter

ChristieGolden.com Christie Golden's Website

WordPress.com Musings and Meanderings, a blog by author Christie Golden

Wizards.com Author/Artist Bios → Christie Golden

BlizzPlanet.com Christie Golden - World of Warcraft: Rise of the Horde Interview

BlizzPlanet.com Another Christie Golden Interview