Stories
Stories
Cast of Characters

Illustration by Brian Stauffer
THE PROFESSOR: Asaf Ali Khan
For his first book, James Glenn (MBA 1965) was going to write about his own experiences in India during the Green Revolution of the 1970s. Worried it might not be exciting enough, he turned his attention to historical fiction. The result is a thriller: Pakistan, India and the Bomb: Spy Versus Counterspy. At the center of the book is Asaf Ali Khan, a Pakistani university professor pushed by his uncle to spy on India’s secret nuclear weapons development.
THE WINEMAKER: Caterina Rosetta
Caterina Rosetta, the character at the center of Jan Moran’s (MBA 1989) The Winemakers, is set to inherit the family business and the family secrets. Through Rosetta, Moran explores once-taboo topics including illegitimacy, divorce, and female entrepreneurship and ambition. The character’s winemaking skills are informed by research at MaryAnn Tsai’s (MBA 1989) Napa winery, Moone-Tsai.
THE SAMURAI: Tōru
“Decades of business memos” led Stephanie Spong (MBA 1992) to embrace the “freedom of fictional storytelling” under the pseudonym Stephanie R. Sorensen. Her first novel, Tōru: Wayfarer Returns, is a techno-fantasy set in 1850s Japan, and its hero is the eponymous To¯ru, a young revolutionary loosely based on the true story of a shipwrecked ship’s cook who was rescued and taken to America.
THE SCIENTIST: Poison Ivy
Amy Chu (MBA 1999) didn’t create Poison Ivy. The super villainess was first introduced in a 1966 Batman comic. But with her new Poison Ivy: Cycle of Life and Death, Chu brings a modern sensibility to the DC Comics seductress: “I thought it was time to update her as a smart scientist with more powers, character complexity, and antihero aspirations.”
THE NAVY SEAL: Bruce Tanner
Bruce Tanner was born of an author’s dilemma: The main characters of F.X. Biasi Jr.’s (PMD 41, 1981) first epic, The Brother-in-Law, were too old to star in an ongoing adventure series. So in Biasi’s later thrillers, the mantle is passed on to a son, Navy SEAL Bruce Tanner—“the classic all-American male hero.” In the newest, Slaughter House Chronicles, Tanner launches an undercover mission to bring a drug cartel to justice.
Post a Comment
Related Stories
-
- 01 Jun 2025
- HBS Magazine
Alumni and Faculty Books
Re: Charley Ellis (MBA 1963); Maria Ellis (OPM 32); Anson Frericks (MBA 2011); Don Gillis (PMD 66); P.J. Kirby (MBA 1978); Larry Lepard (MBA 1983); Mike Mears (MBA 1975); John Travers (MBA 2002); Lee Wilson (MBA 1978); Matthew C. Weinzierl (Joseph and Jacqueline Elbling Professor of Business Administration Senior Associate Dean, Chair, MBA Program); Julia B. Austin (Senior Lecturer of Business Administration); Arthur C. Brooks (Professor of Management Practice); Ranjay Gulati (Paul R. Lawrence MBA Class of 1942 Professor of Business Administration); Gunnar Trumbull (Philip Caldwell Professor of Business Administration) -
- 01 Mar 2025
- HBS Magazine
Alumni and Faculty Books
Re: Chinwe Ajene (MBA 2003); Andrew Brodsky (PHDOB 2017); Brian Buxton (MBA 1977); Kweilin Ellingrud (MBA 2005); Anne Fonte (MBA 1992); Steve Ossad (MBA 1976); Aaron Poynton (AMP 195); Gregory Slayton (MBA 1990); Karen Swanson (MBA 1990); Teresa M. Amabile (Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration, Emerita); Alison Wood Brooks (O'Brien Associate Professor of Business Administration); Jeffrey J. Bussgang (Senior Lecturer of Business Administration); Prithwiraj Choudhury (Lumry Family Associate Professor of Business Administration) -
- 15 Dec 2024
- HBS Magazine
Alumni and Faculty Books
Re: Kavita Bhatnagar (SELP 11); Amar Bhide (MBA 1979); Siri Chilazi (MBA 2016); Christopher Cox (MBA 1997); Gurcharan Das (AMP 91); Maria Ellis (OPM 32); Brooks Fenno (MBA 1962); Sue Hemphill (PMD 47); Frank Lorenzo (MBA 1963); John Lotz (MBA 1971); Ron May (AMP 165); Rusty McClure (MBA 1975); Allie Nava (MBA 2002); Wilbur Ross (MBA 1961); Garry Sanderson (AMP 175); Ken Wilcox (MBA 1983); Rick Williams (PMD 33); Michael Horn (MBA 2006); Max H. Bazerman (Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration); Ethan S. Bernstein (Edward W. Conard Associate Professor of Business Administration); Malcolm S. Salter (James J. Hill Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus); Feng Zhu (MBA Class of 1958 Professor of Business Administration) -
- 01 Sep 2024
- HBS Alumni Bulletin
Ink: Framing the Full Picture
Re: Amy Chu (MBA 1999); By: Jen McFarland Flint