Now this was a surprise, and a nice one too. Thank you very much Brandenburg III! As a token of gratitude, I’ll continue in your tradition of writing a short bio. Thank you all for your congratulations! I would also like to thank the readership of my current two active AARs, Empire of Fu Manchu and The III Reich in World War III. They are two very different bunches, but they share the enthusiasm and involvement in the story that makes every update a little bit of a fix for this writing junkie. Thank you guys – your motivation and feedback is everything for these stories!
Now, as for my history of writing, it’s inseparable in my mind from my history of reading. My dad grew up in Spain in the 40s and was into science fiction and fantastic stories. And small wonder, because those were the days of the Golden Age of Sci Fi, and of Weird Tales magazine, of Fu Manchu and Flash Gordon cinema serials, and The Shadow Radio shows - or at least it was when these things were becoming available in Spain. The genre stuck with him through the 50s and 60s, when he moved to work as a surgeon in Sweden and met my mom. When I was a boy, the bookcases at home were stuffed over with Asimov, van Vogt and Heinlein. These were my first love – but only when Robert E Howard told me his tall tales about a certain blue-eyed barbarian and I tasted the decadence and opulence of Clark Ashton Smith’s Zothique did I find my true love. There’s a third name missing together with those two, but dad wasn’t into horror, so it took another few years before Howard Percival Lovecraft joined his pen pals inside my head. I remember vividly the first of his stories that I read – The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. The macabre has a special appeal for youngsters.
In the midst of all that, Tolkien came waltzing in and enslaved me with the Lord of the Rings. Like many others here, I played RPGs, and it was as Game Master that got my first taste of weaving plots, description and a little bit of dialogue. In my early twenties, that culminated with a full length novel – in Swedish - that was essentially a Fantasy RPG adventure in narrative. I cringe today when I read it. I also wrote a few – very few – short stories, some of them in English, all of them abysmal. My writing interest was winding down as I left my twenties behind and reached my thirties. And then I came here.
My first real taste of writing in English came here, at the Paradox forums. It began with me buying Hearts of Iron. I had bought EU I before, and visited the forums, but only with HOI did I cast a glance at the AAR forum. I read a few AARs, got hooked and decided that I wanted some of that too. Where the Iron Crosses Grow was the result.
When that behemoth was finally completed I wanted a taste of something completely different. I decided to do something totally narrative, inspired by those pulp stories dad had told me about – Fu Manchu and the Shadow especially, and after mixing that with the Nazi’s and WW2 inseparable from the HOI scene, and with a good portion of HP Lovecraft, what came out was Master Plan of Fu Manchu, the sequel of which, Empire of Fu Manchu, I’m still typing away at.
I recently submitted my first short story for publication and anxiously await the veredict. If it hadn't been for all the help and feedback I got from Lord Durham, I doubt I would ever have dared to send it in. If doesn’t fly, I’ll keep at it and try again, hoping that I've learnt something. The love of writing is something that I picked up here and hopefully never will loose. So I might dream of moving on, but Paradox forums will always be where began to learn my trade and I don't see myself leaving anytime soon.
The Yogi, the man
I live in a small village between Stockholm and Uppsala called Knivsta (city of knives, worthy of REH methinks!) I’m married since 2001 with a girl I’ve been with since 1993 and we have three sons aged 5, 3 and 1 years respectively. I work as a financial administrator for the Swedish Government Board of Health and Education. We have a small house, a large Mercedes and pandemonium at all times we’re all at home. I write mainly at work and in the small hours of the night – all other hours are busy. Luckily I need very little sleep. But now it is finally time for some.
Goodnight, and thanks again!