Look and Listen

Biography

With a surname like mine, I was born to become a writer. (Read it, Readett) My life has been spent bouncing between England and Belgium. At the age of five I left London and moved to Belgium where I became bilingual English/French. After receiving a Joint Honours degree in Computing and Economics at Newcastle University I came back to Belgium to work in the Network Operations department of a large credit card company. I love to travel to see other cultures and traditions, am particularly interested in Pre-columbian civilizations like the Maya, Aztecs and Incas and Ancient Egypt. So far I've been fortunate enough to visit a large part of Europe, the USA (several times), Russia before Perestroika, Australia, Mexico and Botswana. And I am also fascinated by wildlife, nature, the environment and astronomy. My favourite reading habits are Sci-Fi, Mysteries, Thrillers. My favourite authors include Michael Crichton, Isaac Asimov, Len Deighton, Arthur C Clarke, Dan Simmons(Hyperion), Patrick Tilley(Amtrak Wars), Christopher Hinz(Ash Ock), Christian Jacq, Wilbur Smith, Hammond Innes, Desmond Bagley, John Grisham, Orson Scott Card(Ender series), Gordon R Dickson (Dorsai), Terry Pratchett, Alan Dean Foster, Douglas Adams, Adam Hall(Quiller), Larry Niven.

Inspiration

My initial nudge into the world of story telling came from a history teacher at school. He gave us quick lessons on particular events, or eras then asked us to create a story using information he had just given us or that we had gleaned from research we might have made. My grades were seriously improved by those stories. After University, with an initial public interest in the environment in full swing, I set out to win a bet. Write a book around a 'green' issue before my interlocutor. That book is still in the process of being written and I have ideas for at least two 'prequels', one 'sequel' and one 'insidequel'. To explore the future results of our actions today, I try to imagine future versions of everyday objects and technology. As Larry Niven once said, "If you're going to invent the car, then you've got to invent the traffic jam." And so my second novel (yet my first in print) came screaming to life. I was at the Brussels car show in 1996 (le Salon de l'Automobile), waiting for some friends, who were caught in a traffic jam to enter the car parks of the Heysel. At the entrance, there was a stand describing various European Commission projects relating to Transport Telematics and Smart Mobility. With time on my hands I grabbed some brochures and read about Park and Ride (P&R) terminals and traffic redirection systems (now available in many cars). By putting together examples from different projects (such as Quartet, DRIVE II and Prometheus), I tried to imagine what Brussels would be like with such an intelligent transport system (ITS). As a great movie fan, I cannot deny that several great films influence my way of writing technothrillers. Examples of such films : The Terminator, Aliens, Die Hard.