Featured Interview With Ian J Miller
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was raised in rural New Zealand, first on the West Coast of the South Island, which seems to breed individuals, then at Rakaia. I went to the University of Canterbury, obtained a PhD in chemistry, and then spent four years overseas. The most dramatic such time was when on August 23, 1968, I drove my beat-up car from Krakov into Czechoslovakia, effectively with the invasion. I returned to New Zealand as a research chemist, eventually setting up my own research company. I am married, have two adult children and two grandchildren. The household has one official cat, Horatio, and an occasional one we call Burglar because sit goes for Horatio’s food.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
In my first year at school I seems to make little progress until one day I received a book of stories, for which I had to read one for homework. I read the whole lot overnight, and went from “seemingly retarded” to the accelerated program (which mainly caught up with where I should have been.) My writing really started at University with my goading some friends of my girlfriend. I argued they merely criticised; scientists created. They bet me I could not even think up a plot for a novel, I took up the bet, and eventually I wrote it.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I have rather wide tastes. I have enjoyed Tolstoi very much, one of the books that made a genuinely deep impression on me was Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann, but of the more recent authors, probably Michael Crichton has influenced me as much as anyone. However, what has also influenced my writing more than anything else has been my life experiences. As a scientist, I see a number of problems for us in the future, and I hope to show how some of them might evolve, and how, by the use of clear thinking, we can overcome the problems. I want readers to understand how scientific thinking works, and it is not difficult. I have also seen both sides of the imposition of military force and i have had some hair-raising experiences, all of which I hope I can convert into interesting stories.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest effort is a trilogy, in which I mix my scientific thinking, military power, and my fascination with first century Rome. The first (Athene’s Prophecy) has the young Gaius Claudius given the cognomen Scaevola (because he is left handed) by Tiberius, and ordered to make something of himself through something he will learn from Timothy on Rhodes. On Rhodes, Scaevola receives a message from Pallas Athene, who happens to be a 25th Century classical historian who has learned how to send messages to the past. All Scaevola has to do is prove the earth goes around the sun, win some battles, and make a steam engine based on what he will see in the Library of Alexandria. (I cheated a little here by bringing that forward by a couple of decades.) Oh, and proceed onwards and save the world in the 24th century. So Scaevola does what he can, and fails to get very far, and has to avoid problems with the new Princeps, Caligulae. Eventually he is sent to the Fulminata stationed at Damascus, and then gets sent to Judea, where he also becomes peripherally involved with emerging Christianity.
Book 2 (Legatus Legionis) has Scaevola succeed in proving the heliocentric theory, and take part in the invasion of Britain before being abducted by aliens. Book 3 (Scaevola’s Triumph) has Scaevola become a commander in an alien fleet, in which he saves the alien civilisation. The traveling is relativistically correct, as far as I can make it.
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