Back in the day. . .

When I was a lad back in the 1950's, I often dreamed of flying to the stars. That dream was bolstered by watching every type of sci-fi movie that I could find. Some of my favorites? Forbidden Planet, War Of The Worlds, This Island Earth, Earth vs The Flying Saucers, Gog, Invaders From Mars, Angry Red Planet. . . the list is quite long.

Around the time of my eighth birthday, I got a library card and every Tuesday I would run down the street to the waiting Bookmobile to get my alloted armful of books. I was into Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, Knutter, and the like and would devour books like they were Necco Wafers.

So the twig is bent, so grows the tree. Fifty plus years later, I still read a lot of books. Science Fiction, Legal Drama, Murder Mysteries, High-Tech Thrillers, Spy Novels, Military Adventures, Police Procedurals, you name it. My reading list is also speckled with a good assortment of hard science and physics books from Stephen Hawking, Brian Greene and others.

Yesterday marked the 42nd anniversary of the historic first Moon landing. Today marked the end of the NASA Space Shuttle flights. My whole life has been spent wondering about the origins of life, the nature of the universe and now I have the gratifying knowledge that I was around to see Man's first feeble attempts to leave the planet of his birth and reach out into the void.

Instantly, after deciding to write a series of space opera novels, I looked toward Orion, my favorite constellation. Easily discernable in this photo is Bernard's Loop, a 300 lightyear-wide bubble of expanding gas thought to be the remnant of a massive multi-stellar explosion some 2 million years ago. This area of space is the background of my stories and, just as always, I'm certain that once Man actually explores this region of the Milky Way, the truths found there will easily outstrip the fantasies. Nature is more creative than we give Her credit for.