My first Asher was Prador Moon. i recommend it to friends as a gateway drug. I can’t eat soft-shell crab without having queasy associations … gee thanks Neal. Like others around here I started reading SF around age 10 – the Heinlein juveniles. then quickly discovered the paperback rack at the local drugstore: Methuselah’s Children, Childhood’s End, Rebirth (The Chrysalids), Starship (Non-Stop). Harlan Ellison!! My academic background is philosophy (logic & metaphysics), and while I still read in this area, I’ve lost the appetite for writing. Contemporary academia strikes me as hell on earth. My wife Rebecca is the SF novelist R M Meluch (space-Romans!). I earn my living as a programmer, specializing in the various array programming languages (APL, K, J). My first programming job (1970) was working at the pole for the US Antarctic research program. Asher writes faster than I can read — I can’t keep up.
My website is nsl.com, and here we are at a convergence con a few years ago:
And here with the kind folks who put me up for a month in their longhouse in the village of Madobak on Siberut – despite the corbusier spectacles and big stupid clown-shoes.
And finally here I am in Ajijic Mexico with our beloved wolf-dog Jermiah.
Note: I often chat with people via DMs and it was only when in passing Stevan mentioned his wife that I recognised the name. Obviously it is not a common one, to me anyway. Memory switches clicked down and I had to ask, ‘Is this your wife?’ The book has been in my collection for some time. That it is there means I very much enjoyed it.
— Neal Asher