He worked in the 70s as an assistant to J.R.R. Tolkien s son and literary executor Christopher Tolkien, preparing The Silmarillion for publication. While working on CBC radio series The Scales of Justice from 1982 to 1989, his fantasy novels began to appear. He married Laura Beth Cohen in 1984, and they have two sons.
Fantasy is backward-looking in the sense of examining myths, roots, legends, sources, origins.
Not backwards as in reactionary, but looking back to when we were afraid of the dark, and why, to the formation of the myths and legends by which we attempted to explain the workings of our world. Fantasy, as perceived, tends to be under -explored, both by its practitioners and by its readers. It s capable of doing and being significantly more. Readers of fantasy tend to have certain expectations imprinted upon them. That s one reason why fantasy has somewhat less intellectual credibility than science fiction.