About the Author.

Q: When did you get the idea to write Bounded Allegiance?

A: I was on a trip back from Memphis where I had just attended my cousin’s wedding. For the few years prior, I had been doing a lot of driving as part of my communications job and in order to entertain myself I would just let my imagination wander. The book was just a natural outcropping of those highway daydreams. I still get a lot of great ideas from time spent on the road. In fact, we’re taking a trip to New Orleans and Biloxi soon and I’m hoping the time spent will be an inspiration for a few nice pieces.

Q: How hard was the book to write and how long did it take?

A: I’d have to say writing the book was moderately difficult not because of the creative aspects, but more for the tedious grammatical revisions and sheer resolve required to complete the book. To be successful as a writer you need not only to be inspired, but also you have to have the strength of will to finish what you’ve started. Truthfully, I almost gave up several times on the project. In real writing time it probably took a few years to come up with the finished draft, even though the story had been finished for some time before that.

Q: What’s the story about?

A: At its root, the story is really about the characters and their relationships. It’s about soldiers and a call to duty. Like most of my stories, Bounded Allegiance is character driven. That’s not to say there isn’t a strong plot line, but I just think that interesting characters will draw you into a piece more rapidly than a complex narrative. In Bounded Allegiance, you follow a group of soldiers initially as part of a major planetary battle, but the story takes a turn and centers on one mission and a small group of soldiers with a secretive, shadow organization in command. I took a lot of inspiration from WWII movies like Memphis Belle and Saving Private Ryan along with your typical science fictions stories like Starship Troopers and Halo.

Q: What made you want to write science fiction?

A: Since I was a kid, I’ve always been fascinated by science fiction through the good and bad years. Some of my favorite writers were Robert A. Heinlein and Alan Dean Foster. Unfortunately, sci-fi has received a reputation for terrible writing and I think that Hollywood movie flops have had a lot to do with that. But if you look at the classics and new classics of sci-fi like Bladerunner, the Terminator, Aliens, the original Matrix and TV shows like the Star Trek franchises and Stargate, they’re more there than just eye-candy and action. The stories are about human beings and our future as a species—life, death, love, hatred and the urge for power, all the things that make us what we are. Above all, sci-fi is about possibilities, choices, and where we’ll be if we make the wrong ones.

Q: What is your connection with the military?

A: Well, I guess you could say I was born because of the Viet Nam War. My father was in the Air Force and met my mother in Thailand. He spent thirty years in the service. I have fourteen, most of it in the Army National Guard, although I did serve four years on active duty. I’ve worked in the Infantry, Military Intelligence, the Signal Corp, and Transportation.

Q: What do you want people to get from your writing?

A: I just want them to enjoy the reading. As kids, I think that a lot of tedious and torturous reading is forced on us. As adults, we seldom have time for recreational reading. Nowadays, books have to vie for time along with everything else in our face-paced lives. I love movies but great literature truly inspires the imagination and allows us to consider “What if?”