Science Fantasy

Not at all, though after it was written I realised that, because of my training and work as a scientist, the settings I had created and the fantasy elements of my story had a strong and logical foundation which added to the realism and believability of my worlds.

Initially all I wanted to do was write an epic fantasy that was a great big adventure, but I did want to write something different from the usual male-dominated, good vs evil kind of fantasy that was so prevalent back when I began writing, nearly fifteen years ago (and still is). Also, recalling Tolkien's criticism of his own work as being 'too short', I wanted to write a really big but totally consistent story.

A SHADOW ON THE GLASS, therefore, is the first volume in a four book epic fantasy series called THE VIEW FROM THE MIRROR QUARTET which took me twelve years to write (and whose origins in world-building go back another decade). It forms the first part of a cycle of ten fantasy novels I'm writing called THE THREE WORLDS SERIES which consists of the Quartet, a trilogy, a pair of novels and finally a single novel. I'm writing the second and third books of the trilogy at the moment. The action takes place on the Three Worlds (Aachan, Tallallame and Santhenar) which were originally occupied by three distinct human species (Aachim, Faellem and old human). Then, fleeing out of the void came a fourth species, the Charon. Desperate, on the edge of extinction, they changed the balance between the worlds forever ?

Having written the Quartet I came to realise that it was a 'Darwinian' fantasy. There are no truly evil characters in it, though sometimes good characters do evil deeds. There are four human species, each struggling with all the others, and each doing what they think is right to ensure the survival of their kind.

How did this come about? Well, every writer is a product of their environment, upbringing, and the work they do, and I've been a working scientist for twenty-five years. In fact, when I was a kid I had no interest in writing at all, though I devoured books in every genre. I just wanted to be a research scientist. My first degree was in earth sciences. That was in the early 1970's. The environmental movement was just getting started and I became interested in environmental research. To do research you need a Ph. D. so I ended up doing one of those. It's great training in being persistent, and therefore very useful for a writer. My doctorate was in marine science, specialising in pollution in the bottom of Sydney Harbour, of which there's plenty!

Somehow I ended up an expert in an esoteric branch of pollution science, namely contaminated sediments and how to manage them safely. I set up my own little consulting firm 15 years ago and have been doing that kind of work ever since. My plan was to only ever have one employee ' me ' so I could pick the kinds of jobs I liked and live with my family wherever we wanted to go. I had grown up in the middle of a forest, and my wife also came from the country. We wanted to bring up our kids in a pretty, peaceful place, a long way from the muck and grime of the city.

I live in Australia but work has taken me all over the Asia-Pacific region, to such romantic locales as Mauritius, Sumatra, Bali, Fiji and Tonga, as well as the bottom of every scummy, festering harbour in between. Those places, the people I met there, and the disasters we faced and (sometimes) overcame, gave me many ideas for my books. These days for family reasons I do most of my professional work in my home office. Over the past decade I've designed some of Australia's national guidelines for the protection of the marine environment, however for the last three or four years I've essentially been writing full time (and consulting part time).