Hi.  My name is Karl Joseph Eckstein.  While growing up in the Washington Heights area of uptown New York City, my friends and I often explored the densely forested areas of Inwood Hill Park, and fished from the rocky shoreline of the Hudson River.  Back then, it was easy to let our imaginations run wild as we explored historic places like Fort George, or roamed through fort-like buildings such as the Cloisters in Fort Tryon Park.   Sometimes I'd spend days wandering through the floors of the Museum Of Natural History.  After dark, we'd often look for more exciting, mysterious places, like the old abandoned Dykeman Street pier, or the ruins of old houses or stores.   We were never bored because we always had interesting places to visit, and fun things to do because of the numerous historic areas that surrounded New York. Those early experiences kindled in me a strong desire to continue investigating other interesting, strange, and exciting places.  After completing my four year tour in the U.S. Marines, (1961 - 1965) my wife and I moved to Roswell, New Mexico.  Learning about the 1947 Roswell incident got me interested in UFO’s, which, years later, led to the writing of my first novel, a paperback called The Dykeman Encounter; which was the first of my Sasquatch/UFO series. In 1967, we moved to south Florida, where I supplemented our income by writing wildlife and nature photojournalism articles for Florida Living and other publications. While hiking and camping in places like the Ocala Forest, I heard about people's frightening encounters with huge, foul-smelling creatures called Skunk Apes.  Some local fishermen also told us about a lake that was inhabited by large, aggressive alligators. Excursions into both areas, followed by research related to Florida's cousin to the creatures called Sasquatch or Bigfoot, inspired the writing of my second book, Terror On Skunk Ape Lake. At times, doing the necessary research for some of my stories has resulted in unusual experiences, such as the time I spent wading chest deep in the alligator infested waters of the Florida Everglades.  My wife and daughter have braved numerous other experiences with me, like canoeing through swamplands, exploring underground cavern systems, climbing the pyramids of ancient Mayan ruins, and exploring Anasazi cliff dwellings; to mention just a few.  These, and other adventures have provided me with great settings for the Action-Adventure spirit of my stories. The recently released novel, Akanis - Lost City of Amazonia, was my first attempt at writing E-book.  I have have also written and published a new, revised E-book version of The Dykeman Encounter.  Terror On Skunk Ape Lake has just been released as an E-book.  Another soon to be released E-book entitled Cave Creatures of Spuyten Duyval is still in the works. Although my science fiction and action-adventure stories are completely fictional, they are all based on true historical facts and on some of my own personal experiences. Many of the settings have been taken from places that I have actually visited.  The technical data and other information that I've woven into the stories are the result of untold hours of ongoing research. I have also published an informative writer's manual entitled How To Write Exciting and Believable Science Fiction and Action-Adventure Stories, which is available as an E-book.