Michael J Herrity
I’m a science fiction author based in Brisbane, Australia, though I’m originally from Glasgow, Scotland. Yes, it’s much warmer (and sunnier) where I live now, no I don’t miss the rain, though I do miss so much else about my native country. Having said that, I wouldn’t swap my adopted home city for anywhere else.
For as long as I can recall I’ve loved fiction. My mother in particular was a voracious reader and from a young age expeditions to the local library were a regular event. She would max out her library card each time and haul a sizeable hoard of literature all the way back to our apartment at the top of formidable hill. I, of course, was always encouraged to select from the children’s section and duly did so. Over time I graduated from comics and younger books to reading books my father was finished with, eventually fueling a taste for everything from war and spy novels to adventure and horror. Science fiction and dystopian futures came later, though looking back given that my first loves were Transformer comics, perhaps the affinity was always there.
These days I read a mixture of classic authors such as Asimov, Dick, Vonnegut etc as well as amazing contemporary writers such as Iain M Banks, Martha Wells, Andy Weir, Pierce Brown, Neal Asher and more. If I had to choose one book however that affected my tastes and outlook more than any other however it would be 1984 by George Orwell. Having read it in high school it had a profound impact on me, staying with me longer after those first readings.
Given that my background is in Software Engineering, I’ve come late to a love of writing. Having started to dabble in 2017, I found it was a wonderful way to while away my train commute. Before long however it began to grow beyond a diversion from the tedium of public transport and I realised I’d found a new passion in life. My first novel, Mindhouse, was several years and several thousand train journeys in the making, during which time I also penned a few short stories and expand the Systems Collective universe my mind had been busily conjuring. Now it feels like I spend much of my waking hours, writing about this universe, or frantically scribbling down random thoughts as they trickle from my cerebrum.