When I was 13, (In the Mid 1970's) I travelled to high school every day on the longest school bus route in Australia; a 200 km round trip. It was a long time to sit on a bus with Vinyl seats and no air conditioner in the middle of an Australian Summer.

A Lovely lady who was a teacher at Moree High school, for some reason, (I was probably annoying her) talked me into borrowing a novel from her.  It was the first novel I had ever read and was called “The Maker of Universes” by Philip Jose Farmer. Book one of his “Tier World Series". One by one, I read them all as they became available to me over the years.

The book ignited my imagination as it had never been before in my young life and from that day on, each trip to school and back seemed to take minutes as I was absorbed by the Sci-Fi book I had in my hand at the time. I read books by the greatest of writers such as Isaac Asimov, Robert A Heinlein, Arthur C Clark and Ron L Hubbard to name just a few. 

Their many books worked to shape my young mind into believing there is always a way to work through adversity. I guess that could be why I see the world as I do. I believe that without hard times in our lives, we would not fully appreciate the highlights and as we get older, we remember a lot of those hard times as turning points and even end up laughing about the near misses and how we were so lucky to come through with little damage. We don’t remember the foolishness that got us into messes; we remember the heroic deeds and strokes of genius, quick thinking or hard work that we came up with under pressure to get through or out of the mess.

Then one morning, just a few years ago I woke with an idea. A concept for a story and an urge to write it, and share it. Talk about obsession! I was waiting outside the computer store for the doors to open that very morning and bought a Laptop. My wife had no idea what I was up to, but she was definitely worried about my fanatical attitude and it was money we couldn’t really afford. As soon as I got home, laptop in hand, I started typing (One finger, then Two at a time) It took me just three months to write a 150000 word story, during that time I also went  to work five days a week and I was not fun to live with; lucky for me, my family was supportive of my obsession.

Over the next three years I spent a considerable amount on editing, re-writing and finally getting the first book of the True Eden series, "Lunar Redemption" published. I now have some knowledge of the writing and publishing process and I know that if you want to get published, then you have to be prepared to put in the hard yards. You also need to be able to trust your Editor’s advice as they are more knowledgeable about the mechanics of writing than the average writer.  You can do worse than trust in them, and above all, don't start the book if you don't have the commitment to see it through. Is it worth the effort? I think it is.

True Eden is not a religious series. So, why did I call it True Eden? There are too many questions and not enough answers in the world and I think many of us would love to know where we came from in the beginning. If it's not Earth, then where? I think that eventually, Humanity will outgrow this planet; it's simple maths. So what will happen then?  We have to grow, or we will wither and die along with the planet when resources run out.

There is no longer the possibility to kill off a few people and start again on this planet as was the way throughout recorded history, there are just too many people now. Soon there will be no room for countries to grow and the resources needed to create and sustain technology will become scarcer. What then?

Humanity will again be at a turning point and adversity will become the everyday norm. People and leaders will do what they think needs to be done to overcome personal and global problems. Some will choose terror and war; their focus locked into what they know, but there will be others who will look outward to the Moon and beyond and dream about the limitless resources, riches and room offered by the vastness of space.

The time will come to act as there will be no more room for leaders to manoeuvre and when that happens, all the strategic pieces will need to be in place if humanity is to survive....or some part of it, with technology intact.

And yet, within the confines of the True Eden series, beginning with Lunar Redemption, I am trying to “ramp it up” way beyond greed and power. I want there to be a depth of meaning and a full circle for humanity. For there to be a larger reason and a monumental answer. It has become my passion.

True Eden is my way of trying to show that there are alternatives to Total Annihilation.  Humanity has become too powerful and can now kill everything on a global scale, we have already outgrown our ability to survive a nuclear holocaust in any way that will not either send us back to the Stone Age or sterilise the planet. Spreading out the population among many planets makes Humanity a harder species to kill and more likely to succeed into the future.

So, I have enough information to write my series, a future in space for humanity seems the logical answer; it’s where humanity belongs and I really think that humanity will call space home.....one day.