High Class Books: Author Interview

Have you always enjoyed writing?

As an Author, yes. In a previous life, as an Educator, my writing was constrained to grading essays for students—very dry most of the time and fairly redundant. Before that, I did technical writing in the corporate world, which is not the ideal arena in which to freely express oneself. I produced User Manuals, and Repair Manuals for highly technical devices and products. I did a stint as a Standards Engineer for a leading Aerospace corporation; a position with tasks that again did not allow for any creativity—I did learn how to effectively use the Imperative—an occupational necessity.

Why did I write these novels in particular?

This is a topic near and dear to my heart and one for which I think I can offer some salient advice. Over the last couple decades I have been part of an on-going experiment: Can an Objective Path to awakening produce in an individual the properties and functions of higher centers (those which are responsible for Objective Self-Knowledge and Objective Reason)?

The path I speak of involves the removing of all non-verifiable data and emotions cluttering one’s being. In other words, scrapping everything acquired through blind belief, old wives’ tales, the plethora of “they say”, snippets to volumes of information un-vetted and unsubstantiated which through laziness or convenience has populated one’s mind and heart. At the same time carefully building up a verifiable structure of mentation, an inner construction which allows for the assimilation of verified data and verifiable information about oneself and the real world in which one finds oneself.

This two-fold endeavor has yielded, for me personally, a far more impartial perspective both of my far less cluttered inner world, as well as clearer perceptions of what is transpiring in our outer world—that place where we all must have our daily existence.

So, with our terminology clarified, how to weave such an understanding into a narrative form accessible to others? I chose the medium of metaphor and allegory—those forms which throughout the history of our species have stood the test of time for conveying the deeper meanings of our existence. I began with a simple premise:

“What if there were lineages of highly conscious individuals from the most ancient of times and emergent into the present day?”

That question, for me, would allow for a presentation both: of what would be the properties and functions of a person with higher consciousness, and also how a regular person could come to such a condition for themselves. It is the latter which, through my protagonists’ interactions with others, could become an accessible path for everyone wishing to gain what they may think they already possess, but clearly do not.

It was the follow-up questions, “What would their world be like?” even more importantly, “What would our world be like—the one which we think we know?” that forced me to begin where I did—in the past—and bring the story through the subtly changed present and into a transformed future. Hence the term coined by J. W. Campbell regarding Mr. Heinlein’s epic works: “Future Histories.”

Future History, then, according the sense in which I am compelled to use it, means the results of the aforementioned premise to have been realized in practice, extrapolated into real-time for a new view of man’s relationship to, and place within the greater world—even up to the Type III Civilization as envisioned by Kardashev. That lofty arena of such an accomplishment is one which we as residents of the present Earth are no where near even the farthest horizons. Understandably.

While our societies, to some extent, and most definitely our technologies have evolved exponentially over the last few millennia, the individual, and resultant collective, evolution of our inner worlds haven’t moved forward even the barest distance by comparison. It is the individual who must perforce begin the personal change. Only then will our collective inner revolution gain the necessary traction to propel us in the directions of the ideals set forth in the allegorical Future Histories as presented in the Donkey and the Wall trilogy and The Curious Voyages of the Anna Virginia Saga.

What books did you love growing up?

My first book read for pleasure, not a school assignment, was The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien. Understand, this was all before the advent of the Internet and worldwide web. I quickly followed that with his LOTR trilogy, once I could find a bookstore that carried them—and read them all a few times before finally getting my hands on The Silmarillion. By then I had also encountered authors of science fiction, Asimov, Vonnegut, Heinlein, Dick, as well as lesser know writers but with interesting stories none-the-less. I joined a Book-of-the-month club and explored a grand variety of titles in many genres. Then came high school and college and exposure to classics, authors whose works have stood the test of time—and I most definitely have my favorites among those, having taught most of them later as a Literature and Composition Educator.

But the book I most loved both as a teenager, then later as a collegiate, and even now as full-grown person is the first book I ever picked up to read for fun—The Hobbit.

Who is your favorite author?

That’s going to have to remain a tie of sorts, and not a pretty one. I adore Jane Austen, revere Dickens, am spellbound by Poe, thrilled by Heinlein, intrigued by Asimov, relax with Stevenson, chuckle with Rowling’s and Geary’s witches, gulp with Collins’s Games, and thoroughly enjoy rereading my own novels—and that’s not narcissistic. It’s satisfying and reassuring that my stories and characters can still move me to laughter and tears, excitement and sorrow.

What book genre of books do you adore?

Simple: Science Fiction. I fell in love with the realm of the possible futures for mankind and the other lives those characters encountered out in space. The new technologies, the forecasts of changed political, social and personal standards and interactions. What’s not to love? I mean other than it’s pure imagination. Oh, wait. That’s a GOOD thing!