I was born in Southeast England, in 1968, and mostly brought up in a town full of retired colonels. My early memories largely consist of running around building sites and being able to spell ‘colonel’ at an unusually early age. Like most people of that sort of age, I took to making up imaginary friends to supplement my real ones. Unlike most people, I never quite stopped, and I’ve been writing about them in one form or another ever since.

Aside from writing books and pretending to be other people (which I suggest largely amount to the the same thing), I have, at various times, been obsessed with mathematics, classical piano music, kung-fu, particle physics and Sid Meier’s Civilisation (the original). Anything that explodes is fascinating, but that’s a genetic thing and thus Not My Fault. Coffee is essential, but sadly no longer a substitute for sleep. Being suddenly face to face with a shoal of Barracuda is disconcerting, being on the top of a mountain at dawn is exhilarating, the Stone Forest under a full moon is magnificent, and I liken having two small children to having one of those hand-held blender things permanently rammed into my brain, love them dearly as I do. The first time I went on holiday abroad, a war broke out. I’ve noticed this happens a lot.

I now live in a different part of South-east England with my wife, said two small blenderschildren and two cats. I continue to pretend to be other people, most frequently A Responsible Parent(TM). Family life has rather curtailed any experiments in domestic rocketry, which is probably why dragons have such appeal. Much of my life (aside from the headline highlights, such as meeting wife-to-be, birth of first son, etc.) has been lost to the mists of time and the haze of the Small Child Blender Effect. Being bought beer at conventions tends to loosen the old neurons