About the Author and Foreword Writer

The Author

Simon Forward was born in Penzance in 1967.

He dabbled in computer programming, but from the age of eleven wanted to be a writer 'when he grew up'.

He is now a published author, with two Doctor Who novels, Drift (2002) and Emotional Chemistry (2003) for BBC Books, a number of Doctor Who short stories for the BBC and Big Finish, as well as an audio drama, The Sandman, for Big Finish and no doubt an expanding waistline under his belt.

He lives to write, as opposed to writing to live, developing other SF novels and stories, as well as some works of contemporary fiction, in the constant hope of being able to do both. Oh, and he’s still waiting to grow up.

The Foreword Writer

Guy N Smith was born on November 21 1939 in the small village of Hopwas, near Tamworth, Staffordshire.

He was first published at the age of 12 in the Tettenhall Observer, a local weekly newspaper. Between 1952 and 1957 he wrote 56 stories for them, many serialised. In 1990 these were collated into book format entitled Fifty Tales from the Fifties.

Shooting (hunting) was his first love, and in 1961 he designed and made a 12-bore shotgun, which he still uses today. He wrote for many of the sporting magazines, and also wrote fiction for London Mystery Selection, a quarterly publication to which he contributed 18 stories between 1972 and 1982.

In 1972 he launched a second hand bookselling business which eventually became Black Hill Books, the intention being to build it up as a full time business, however his plans were overtaken by his writing career.

In 1974 he wrote a horror novel for New English Library called Werewolf by Moonlight, and this was followed by a couple more, however it was Night of the Crabs in 1976 which really launched him as a writer. It was a bestseller and spawned five sequels, and was followed by sixty or so horror novels through to the mid-1990s. Amicus bought the film rights to Night of the Crabs in 1976, and this allowed Guy to leave his job in banking, and buy his own house.

Aside from horror, Guy has written crime and mystery (as Gavin Newman), children's animal novels (as Jonathan Guy) and a book on Writing Horror Fiction (as A & C Black).

In 1997 his first fill length western novel, Pony Riders was published by Pinnacle in the States.

He is currently the gun editor on The Countryman's Weekly, which entails his writing five illustrated feature articles a week on guns, cartridges, deer stalking, big game hunting and so on.

Other interests include collecting (toys, books, guns, cartridges), and tobacco, smoking and collecting pipes, tins and packaging. In 1976 he wrote a book called Tobacco Culture.

He describes his home as "stepping back through time" and feels that in today's world somebody or other "would like to ban all my interests".

Visit Guy's website @ www.guynsmith.com