Earliest story memory
Emotional when Noddy’s red boots were stolen.
Fried eggs and…?
Tintin! The Black Island adventure.
Inspiration?
Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park), Clive Cussler, Andy McDermott, Scott Mariani, Blake Banner, Matthew Reilly, James Rollins, Andrew Mayne (Station Breaker), Gary McAvoy, Alistair Maclean, Jeremy Robinson.
Gear
A notepad and a fountain pen, Scrivener, GIMP, Krita.
Otherwise?
Musician (guitar & vocals), sketch artist, Software Product Owner / AGILE Scrum Master
The Y2K Problem
The End is Nigh! Amid the Terror of Y2K, Douglas acquired a laptop from a discard pile. This machine had a peculiarity: half its screen was an iridescent display of fractured LCD. (Pressing gently on the LCD and watching the colours mix provided entertainment.) Only two things worked on this machine. WOLF 3D (Yeah!) and DOS.
The Scribd Phenomenon
Douglas hammered out a draft of his first book… Well, not the first. The first was an El Dorado-theme novella written in neat cursive in a 100-page schoolbook. So: this first draft of the second book was typed in the DOS editor, copied into Word and uploaded to Scribd.com. Months later, it had 800+ views and an average 4.5 rating. Impressed, Douglas decided to publish.
Just one more…
Encouraged with the response to Haunted, Douglas decided, ‘One more, an adventure.’ A whirlwind trip to Egypt inspired his second book Secret of the Scribe. Before he knew it, he was scheming for his third book.
The Labours
While Secret was completed in 6 months, The Apocalypse Trigger took two years and Diablo – which seeded the idea of trilogies – wasn’t easy either. But those two were his Labours. If he succeeded…
Immortality and beyond
The Immortality Trigger won Douglas his first awards and powerful reviews. Since then, he has released a book-a-year. His thrillers are praised for their fluid pace, non-linear story arcs set against contemporary themes.