Introducing Myself

I grew up in Kent,  in England, and enjoyed a career in the consumer electronics industry for 30 years, retiring at the age of 54. Although an avid reader, I never had the ambition to be a writer, but during an extended vacation, stimulated by the landscape in New Zealand, I began to write 'The Chronicles of Pet" series of novels.

"The Chronicles of Pet" was published in 2011 and consists of five novels:

Part 1 - Island Homes

Part 2 - Virtual Companions

Part 3 - We are Animal

Part 4 - You're Real and Here with Me

Part 5 - New World Reality

The novels are set on Earth in the 22nd century and follow the experiences of a handful of survivors from the UK, USA, and New Zealand after a pandemic, and earthquakes wipe out the world’s population.

In 2017 I published my sixth novel, "Trudy Trinket", about a teenage girl living in Cornwall England who befriends a Dragon.

On 01Decemeb2020, I published my latest two-part series:

Part 1 - The Eiderons

Part 2 - Lytis

This series is set in the 21st Century in London and follows the life of  Eva through University during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the unbelievable life she experiences.

All my novels are published on Amazon Kindle.

Lytis - Part 2 of the Life of Eva

Location: Earth, London, BBC TV Channel - World News

Date: 19 July 2049 CE (Current Era), 2200 GMT

A female newscaster outlines the headlines before reporting the top story of the day.  'Two years ago, a documentary called, "Who Were They?" was broadcast on all Major International Documentary channels, concerning the disappearance of womyn and children from four regions on Earth.

'The producer Amy Stephenson, the renowned investigative reporter, who came to prominence in the years preceding the "Events" with her documentaries concerning the rising numbers of hermaphrodites.  Since the, her documentaries relating to the consequences of the "Events" have become the most viewed on all media. 

'Her latest documentary aired tonight Globally called "What's Going on?" and outlined the disappearance in Costa Rica of five adults and one child in July 2047CE. Sge suggest that the abduction was the result of an unknown entity. Video evidence obtained from a Police source in San Jose Airport, Costa Rica,  clearly showing the instant they disappeared. This evidence verified by highly respected technical specialists.

"A further detailed investigation by Amy Stephenson linked three other disappearances at the same time and date in a small village north of Vilamoura in Portugal, a village on the outskirts of Cochin in India, and a district in the suburbs of Fukuoka Isle of Kyushu, Japan.

"In total, 20 adults and four children disappeared, and no physical trace ever discovered, other than the San Jose video coverage.

'Her detailed investigation uncovered links between the women in the four locations, and during their life, they had direct contact or via family aor work work colleagues.

'She concludes that these abductions and the "Events" are linked. However,, she has been unable to find further evidence to confirm her hypothesis.'

The Eiderons - Part 1 of the Life of Eva

The Blue Planet of Erath has existed for 4.5 Billion Years, with dinosaurs the dominate creatures 200 million years ago, and Homo Sapiens 200,000 years ago.

During the period between the dinosaurs and Home Sapiens, the Earth blossomed with a multitude of creatures who co-existed, feeding on one another to survive and creating a beautiful Planet. However, the emergence of Homo Sapiens fundamentally changed the balance, as with their tools, they were able to slaughter creatures for food a decimate the environment. Not only did they destroy the land, but they also killed their own kind, for reasons of power, race, culture, religion, sex and wealth.

The driving force was the Human form of man, as they considered themselves physically and mentally superior to the Female Human form. They invented fictitious God's in the image of a man in all cultures and subjugated women in the name of their God's through all recorded history.

Today in the 21st century nothing has changed fundamentally in the balance of equality between Man and Women, but what has changed is that man's tools, weapons and the manner of life, are destroying the planet and people, and the population face an uncertain future.

In the context of Earth, three past events, although unrelated, determine the future of the inhabitants of the planet forever:

1 - Close to the River Nile in 3098 BCE (Before Common Era), a tribe woman called Betresh is approached by a group of beautiful and impeccably dressed women. A conversation begins but soon interrupted by the men of the village who take offence by their appearance and slaughter them.

2 - In a village in Costa Rica in 1947 CE (Current Era) under cover of darkness, a teenage mother creeps up to a peasant cabin and abandons her new-born daughter at the front door.

3 - Eva is a teenage girl living in London in 2016 CE and attending a private high school. It's her last day after completing her final examinations with an expectation to gain entrance to Imperial College. She returns home to her family, opens the front door and faints. When she revives, she finds her mother attending and looking extremely worried. But she sees why she becomes hysterical. Her mother attempts to calm her before arranging medical support.

Eva's life changes far outside anything she could ever have comprehended, and surviving the Covid-19 pandemic, before moving into an unimaginable New World Order.

Trudy Trinket

My latest novel published on Amazon Kindle is Trudy Trinket.

Trudy Trinket is a teenage girl and lives with her parents and younger sister in Cornwall in the South West of England. She is in the final year of high school and preparing for examinations, with an expectation of gaining good grades to enter University.

It’s April and her eighteenth birthday, and like all girls of her age she wants clothes, makeup, the latest tablet device, and so on, but in her case, she has an unhealthy interest in Dragons, which we all know, do not exist.

At her family party, Trudy’s Grandmother gives her a dragon book, and a dragon onesie, which causes continuation with her parents, as they think they are inappropriate for a girl of her age.

Trudy ignores her parent comments, and over the days following her birthday, she delves into the contents of the book, which included a memory stick which she activates on her computer, and eventually wears the onesie. The consequences of her actions transform her life, way beyond her wildest thoughts, as she experiences a fantastic mythological adventure.

This book has adult themes.

The Concept of "Pet" as a Sentient Smartphone

As a child I had a vivid imagination when playing with my toys, especially I remember thinking that my trains and cars talked, and I spent many happy hours chatting with them.  This desire did not diminish as I grew up and to my delight in the 70’s talking electronic devices started to appear. They spoke a few words only, but they fascinated me as I wondered how the technology would evolve. 

    
I decided on a career in the electronics industry, and my first fifteen years of work were in consumer electronics development. This was the golden time of Electronics in the 70/80’s as I worked on early personal computers and development tools. I remember an electronic speech synthesis motherboard, which I could programme to speak a limited word set. I brought it home and demonstrated it to my children explaining that one-day many toys and consumer products would talk and that you would be eventually able to hold a conversation with them.

After I had retired, I started writing, and my life-long thoughts of a conversation with an inanimate object fascinated me to the extent I had to include the concept. The big question was how. My frustrations of the inadequate performance of cell phones at that time (2004) came to mind, and that enlightened me to consider an interactive talking smartphone as an attractive proposition. Clearly, it would have to offer features way beyond talking, messaging and other functional applications that the smartphone providers could envisage. 

As you will have noticed from your own experiences with smartphones, the vendors offered many features with the latest delivery systems but failed to realise that the key application that users would hook onto was messaging. Therefore, a sentient smartphone would be the ‘Killer Application’ as it would make obsolete the current trend in products and applications. It would perform whatever task is required by the user, and not by the providers. For maximum effectiveness, when embedded within the body it would provide the sensor functions of sight, smell, speech and sound. In this way, the device would bi-directionally communicate with what you view, hear and speak and be your extended source of sound, vision and smell, and would become your closest friend and companion.

With these concepts in mind, I conceived Pet in my first novel ‘Island Homes’ as Kath’s companion device. The year is 2145 and Kath graduates at the University of Dunedin in New Zealand, her ambition, to be a teacher, find a partner and have children. Lonely, with all her friends having left town she purchases the latest Smartphone, which she names Pet and with whom she builds a relationship. This Smartphone is sentient and is the coolest product on the planet. Kath and Pet become inseparable and together they embark on finding her a job, friends, and romance. Her adventures start the day she starts teaching. The events that follow turn out to be far beyond her wildest dreams and her life is dramatically changed when by luck another girl Holly on the other side of the world contacts her using her companion device.

Maybe, this is a far-fetched idea, but you have to consider how fast electronics and software developments are progressing. In the past, we had hard-wired phones in our homes, then we had simple cell phones to provide the same functions, and today we have smartphones and tablets. These devices are complex and offer fantastic features and performance, but they are primitive as they are not sentient. Future products will be sentient with no buttons, no connectors, no need for charging and no apps, only a screen and a sentient microchip. Ultimately, I imagine the Microchip will connect to the brain directly. Thus, the device will be your friend for life and record everything you do. It will be your memory and communications centre, and your secret friend.

The social consequences will be immense, but they are already today with the irritation of people talking and messaging everywhere you go. In time, it will be normal for people to be talking and thought speaking to their companions and real friends. Maybe, that is a more acceptable social interaction.

The Writing Process

I began writing in March 2004 whilst on a vacation in New Zealand. My wife and I had been spending a number of days in the Abel Tasman Park on the South Island, and it came to me that this would be a great backdrop for a Science Fiction Romance novel. Up until then, I had never had any inclination to write a novel so had no idea where to start.

When we returned to the Bed and Breakfast, I started to write an outline of the five novels on my Psion handheld device. By the time, we returned home to the UK I had written 30k words of the first book 'Island Homes’.  I transferred this onto my laptop and completed writing the novel in November 2004.

The novel was too long, and grammar and formatting not at an acceptable level to consider publication. I invested in writing textbooks and attended a creative writing course at my local college. I worked on correcting the book and at the same time continued to write the remaining four books of the series.

'Island Homes' and ‘Virtual Companions’ were written entirely by typing into my Psion and laptop. During the writing course, they suggested that writing into a notebook had creative merit as it prevents you from trying to edit as you write. As a result, I wrote the rest of the series in notebooks, mainly whilst on holidays, which I completed in March 2008, whilst backpacking in Thailand.

Editing is difficult as it is impossible to find all the mistakes, no matter how careful you are. I used a proofreader for 'Virtual Companions' but I still found grammar errors. I started again and, have rewritten all five novels, and with the assistance of friends, eliminated errors.

The process of writing has been a welcome addition to my life.