Look and Listen

Biography

I'm a retired surveyor who has worked in the oil provinces of Canada, the Canadian Arctic and the Libyan desert. I've also surveyed on a heavy construction project, a dam, where I was a member of the tunneling survey crew and then the check surveyor for the main dam construction. I live in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, Canada, with my wife and two Humane Society shelter dogs. I was born in London, England, just a couple of months before the Second World War started and became a Canadian Citizen in 1975. I do walk the dogs (well, actually they run), every morning, rain, shine, or blizzard – they get an hour to an hour and a half, and I get the needed exercise. I now write fiction full time. I have two novels accepted by Double Dragon with the first slated for June 2007 – and now I have the fantasy novel accepted by Zumaya. I also have a 9000 word short in the new DDP anthology Twisted Tails II (vol 2). My DDP novels are soft SF, with a small group of moderns marooned on an alternate Earth circa 1700 – political and military adventures with swordfights, sailing ships, and cavalry action. My Zumaya title is a fantasy novel that has a young prince taking on dangerous magic to become the sorcerer king – and his sweetheart taking action against the circumstance that says they cannot marry. It also features an arrogant antagonist who pits his materialist technology against magic and the human spirit.

Inspiration

I have always wanted to change the world -- by persuasion, not force. Having lost my father in WWII when I was four years old, I spent much of my free time throughout my life learning about politics, philosophy and religion, conflict and diplomacy, war, and the mechanisms of them all. It seemed inevitable that I should write from the standpoint I reached -- with works of fiction that show these things operating, rather than in non-fiction in an attempt at exposition.