Crack open an author’s skull (preferably after drugging them first) and you’ll find a simmering stew of influences floating around in there like a horrible soup. It’s not pretty, but these are the things that shaped me as I grew up and wound up rendering me virtually unemployable, incapable of doing anything except sitting at a desk and typing about imaginary people doing made up things.

NUCLEAR WAR — I grew up in the Eighties, totally and completely convinced that I would most likely die in a nuclear firestorm before I reached legal drinking age. It didn’t help that my dad took every opportunity to tell me that the Soviet Union had 50 missiles aimed at our hometown at all times and we were on their list of Top Ten First Strike Targets. Continue reading →