I was born on April 11, 1961, in Christchurch, New Zealand, a few hours before the first spaceship left our planet. Nothing can be made of the coincidence of dates. My father worked as a labourer, while my mother worked at home looking after me and the four other children who followed.

As a child I loved to read books, especially if they were about far away places. When I was eight years old I attended a church camp. There, on the wall in the main hall, I saw the light…several Interim Edition 1:63,360 NZMZ 1 Topographical Maps. I couldn’t believe it. I already loved maps, having taken to stealing copies of the school atlas and cutting the continents up into jigsaw puzzles, but the detail in these maps overwhelmed me. I decided then and there that I would learn to make such things.

With that I threw myself into Geography. It became a weekly ritual to cycle into town after school and hand over my fifty cents to the man behind the counter at Lands and Survey, then ride home with my new paper world tucked under my arm. Soon I was making my own maps: at the age of fifteen I completed an imaginary world six metres (twenty feet) wide and four metres (twelve feet) high, in full topographic detail, which hung for many years in the library of my high school. (They returned it to me a few years ago, still in good condition.)

I passed my school exams well, scoring 100% in School Certificate Geography. Two years later I topped the country in English as well as Geography in Bursary examinations, and set off for University.

I found University disappointingly dull, and didn’t bother going to lectures. I survived for two years but just before my final exams of my last year I ran off to deliver wheelbarrows, then worked for three years in a factory making golf clubs. By now I had become heavily involved in an evangelical church. When the church turned hyper-Pentecostal, and hundreds of lives were damaged as a result, I left. It’s not a stage of my life I’m particularly proud of.

I met my partner Dorinda in 1983. We had two children, Iain (1989) and Alex (1990). It was she who opened my eyes to the evil growing in our church, and her counsel led us to leave. I returned to University to finish my degree and remained to complete Masters’ and Ph.D. degrees in Geography. The 1980s were also notable for discovering The Lord of the Rings. I was inspired by the grand scope of Tolkien's world and decided that I wanted to do something like that. So in 1985 I began to write.

The 1990s were dominated by two projects. The first, the New Zealand Historical Atlas, was a six-year, Government-funded project which I joined as soon as I finished my Ph.D. The second project was a much more modest affair, a self-funded Contemporary Atlas New Zealand that nevertheless did well in the market. Both have been reprinted: the former three times, the latter once. I am still involved in non-fiction publishing projects.

By 2000 I realised I was missing academia and managed to secure a part-time position at the University of Waikato beginning in March 2001. Also by this time I had completed two manuscripts worth of my novel – about 400,000 words – and shelved it, uncertain of whether to continue. Dorinda saw a HarperCollins New Zealand editor on TV soliciting manuscripts for a new fantasy imprint: I sent mine off, got it accepted for publication, wrote another 170,000 words and suddenly my hobby has become public property. I’m not sure how I feel about that yet.