About

Welcome to Alternate Futures! On this website you’ll find discussions about alternate futures, what-if scenarios for humanity that could be inspired by an extrapolation of the current world, cutting edge technology, social issues, original science fiction worlds by other authors, or alternate history stories. Alternate Futures is a place for people who love the amazing developments of the modern world and who want to explore paths and pitfalls those developments sometimes bring.

I update the blog weekly with a new post, as well as providing a monthly newsletter. All the writing on Alternate Futures is freely available with no external advertising. If you like what I’m building here, you can sign up to my newsletter. And please share with anyone you know who might be interested.

When I was a kid I liked 3 things: space, comics, and science (video games entered my world a few years later, although this was still early 80s so that meant arcades and coin-ops). At ten I created a comic about a war between Earth and Venus. It featured the exploits of Terran space spy and his mission to infiltrate a Venusian space station. As you might guess, this was shortly after I’d seen Star Wars (the one now called ‘A New Hope’). I didn’t write another piece of fiction for twenty years.

In the meantime I learned more about space, science and technology (in my teens I could quote the specs for all the latest fighter jets and I was the only person in my graduating class who knew what a quark was — yeah, I was a big hit at parties). After some indecision, I eventually became a biochemist. However, a fortunate post-doctoral position not only turned me back toward writing, but also rekindled my long dormant love of science fiction writing. After winning a Europe-wide science writing competition in 2005 and then hitting a whole series of life changes (including marriage, child, and moving country), I decided this was the time to move on to a career in writing and publishing.

To begin, I joined a vibrant community at Writing.com that led to my forming Utility Fog Press and publishing the Assassins’ Canon and Farspace anthologies (I also got into digital art). During this time I also used the inspiration from NaNoWriMos to write the first drafts of three novels. A short time later, a local writing course led to the formation of the York Novelists writing group, which was very helpful to my development as a writer, and eventually led to me form Promoting Yorkshire Authors — a regional author self-help group that is developing promotion opportunities in Yorkshire, UK for Yorkshire authors.

Throughout this time I published very little of my own work, but that’s changing now. My first work to be published was Episode 1 of the six-part superhero trilogy Altered Destiny. Next up is Book 1 of the Dreams of Mortality series, a collection of loosely-linked stand-alone novels the tie into a future humanity series I’m working on.

Born: the northern tip of Lake Superior

From: the Canoe Capital of Canada

University: Waterloo (B.Sc. Biochem), UBC (Ph.D. Biochem)

Fellowships: Weizmann Institute, IRBM

Research topics: Human alpha-amylase, acetlycholine esterase, HCV RNA polymerase

Writing awards: 2005 EMBO science writing contest

Writing groups: Writing.com (2006 – 2009), York Novelists (2008-present)

Author groups: Promoting Yorkshire Authors (2016 – present)

Publishing companies: Utility Fog Press (2008 – present), Quantum Dot Press (2016 – present) – fascilitated self-publishing imprint

Artwork: LightspeedDreams.net

Books to date: Assassins’ Canon, Farspace 1, Farspace 2, Echoes of the Past (Altered Destiny, episode 1)