I grew up on a family farm in North Dakota. The remoteness of my home, with few children my age nearby, made science fiction and fantasy a welcome escape. I read voraciously, especially the works of Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and JRR Tolkien. My favorite television shows were Star Trek, Lost in Space, and that progenitor of steampunk, Wild Wild West. So it was only a matter of time before I began writing in the genre myself, though there were a few false starts along the way. It seemed that the demands of life kept my various projects from completion. After several years as an independent software consultant, I realized that the same discipline required for writing code could be applied to creating fictional worlds.
On Politics
Politics have exerted a strong influence on science fiction ever since HG Wells speculated on the future of human civilization, to 1984, 2001 and beyond. My writings are no exception. I am unabashedly libertarian, a transformation that began (as for so many others) with reading Ayn Rand's novels in high school. On the other hand, I’ve heard it said that libertarians are born, not made, and that those of us who support freedom do so because of something in our temperament. That's probably true, because something in me has always recoiled at arbitrary rules and dictates. Though I try to consider many and varied viewpoints -- my favorite writers include avowed socialists Samuel R. Delaney and Ken MacLeod -- I think there's a bit of the rebel in all of us in the science fiction world.
My Work
My first book, Centrifugal Force was the result of speculation on how a measure of freedom might be achieved in today's unfree world. Fidelio's Automata, my second book from Nakota Publishing, returns to the past for an exploration of history as it might have been, set at the time when Verne and HG Wells were alive. In today'sa youth-oriented culture, it may seem that I got a late start, but I've got a lot more stories in me. In fact, I'm working on several books at this very moment. I invite you to visit the fictional worlds I've created; though I can't promise your stay will be an easy one!
