I have a distinct memory of sitting in a kindergarten classroom, and my teacher asking the class,
“What do you want to learn this year?”
My hand shot up and when she called on me, I answered without hesitation, “To read and write.”
Reading began soon after, but writing took a bit longer. I remember, at age eight, my mom got a typewriter, and I begged her to use it to write a story. She finally relented, and I began writing a Science Fiction story about going to the moon. I only got a page done before she wanted it back, and I never wrote any more of it. But I knew that’s what I wanted to do, write Science Fiction.
At about the same age, I became interested in astronomy, learned all about the planets, and their names from Roman mythology. Shortly thereafter, I discovered Greek mythology, and upon finding it was older than the Roman, learned all I could about Greek myth.
Aside from mythology, I never had any sort of interest in history, until I got into high school. But after my passion for history started, I realized recent history seemed boring. I wanted to know about ancient history. Since I could never seem to get enough of that in school, it became a solitary study.
For many years, just living my life seemed to take up all my time, never leaving any time for writing. But finally, I knew I had to begin. Ancient history called to me the loudest and I wrote Draegnstoen, a story about an ancient British king, aligning many of the smaller kingdoms in an effort to throw off the domination of Rome. (And yes, there were dragons, sort of).
A few people insisted there should be a sequel, and one finally presented itself – the story of the ancient Picts, the first civilization of Scotland. That idea became my second book: Highland King.
About this time, I became disillusioned with my religion and organized religion in general, and I wanted to reflect that in my writing. I had also recently learned about the Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient analog computer, created by the Greeks to study the planets. This device became the central piece of my next book, Gears of Uriel.
Learning about the crusades, I wanted to write about them, and damage they inflicted up on society as a whole. I wrote Tyrian, about a mercenary from and ancient city of Tyre, who wanders the earth for 700 years, inflicting the church’s justice on those it deemed heretics.
That story took a lot out of me, and I decided I was done with that era of my life. Next, I wrote Ajax, a story of the ancient Greek warrior Ajax, and what could have happened to him after the Trojan war. How he came to reject the ideas of war and become a force for good.
Now, five books written, and I still had not gotten to my original love, Science Fiction. The next book took quite a turn. Occam’s Laser, the story of Hygieia, the ancient Greek goddess of Health, hiring a private investigator, Jeremiah Occam, who used a laser instead of a gun and was a descendant of William Occam. She wanted his help to hunt down and destroy the Nosoi, ancient beings of disease that escaped from Pandora’s box (actually a mistranslation – it was a large vase called a pithos). I now had a new genre to write in: Mythic Science Fiction.
The thought occurred – what if Pandora came back, wanting her pithos back and all that came with it. This became book #6, Occam’s Laser: The Return of Pandora. In Greek myth, by releasing the Nosoi, Pandora was blamed (similar to Eve in the Old Testament) for the fall of the world. This book became a great way to show how the patriarchy has affected the world in a negative way.
Getting The Return of Pandora back from my editor, I asked her if she thought there could be yet another book in the series. “Yes, she said. Hygieia and Jeremiah have a child, a daughter.
That idea excited me. Their daughter, Magdalene, was born, and became the demi-goddess of All Light. The story became Occam’s Laser III: Anarchy & Ruin, another take on the age-old theme of light against darkness. This book with be published on August 30, 2024.
What’s next? I recently had the opportunity to visit Greece for a couple of weeks, and have become fascinated with the Cycladic people, a proto-civilization even slightly older than the Minoans. They transitioned from the Neolithic Stone Age to the Copper Age, a step right before the Bronze Age. I think they have an exciting story to tell. This one will be Historical Fiction/Mythology.
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