The Orpheus Directive: Episode 9: Ultimatum (ePub)

I write about heroes... so am I a hero? I would be if I had to be... honest! I once saved a cat from a tree - okay, it was a small tree, an apple tree in fact, but everyone knows size doesn't matter.

I’ve been a Merchant Navy sparks, and a salesman (I was hopeless), but mostly I've been a fiction writer (but that doesn't make me a bad person).

Being a sparks was cool – Radio Officers are…err.. officers. I was on a cargo/passenger ship and got to wear a white uniform and have huge dinners with the passengers.

The really good thing was that the sparks goes off duty the moment the ship picks up the Pilot, whose job it is to steer the ship through dangerous waters or into harbour.

We went to the Far East (Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Burma, Indonesia... the Far East then), and the Pilot was needed for the whole time we were there. So I was off duty for a month, and got to see all these places for free! Okay, got robbed in Hong Kong, but that was my fault for not paying attention - oh and got robbed in Manila, but he was armed with a really big gun, so that was okay.

I had to leave, because I was getting fat (apparently fat is bad).

Back home, I had to earn a living - as all the money-for-nothing slots had been taken by z-list celebs. I became a salesman. Why in God's name, I know not. I went through a one-year intensive training program and was let loose, selling electronics to industry. I was absolutely useless at it - I couldn't handle the rejection, and wanted people to like me. Neither of which fit well with a sales role.

I ran away.

And now I'm a fiction writer. I have over 65 stories (novels and short story series).

At first I wrote ‘regular’ novels; Eden’s Last Hero, Winterwood, and A Whisper of Armageddon, and they were very successful (yippee!) - but we’re all changing the way we read so my latest stories reflect that change.

Clan, The Hellfire Legacy, Soldiers, and Requiem for Eden are all released as one-hour Bitesize