Mike Galloway is struggling to get by in a twenty-first-century depression. He helps a homeless woman named Swifty and senses trouble, but doesn't realize she's a time traveller with a predatory agenda until he wakes up in her body. Galloway embarks on a journey of personal discovery that holds surprising revelations about Swifty's origins in the far future. Caught up in a racist cult with a charismatic leader who may be a time traveller gone mad, Galloway's story, told with sensitivity and emotional clarity, is a chilling, entertaining thriller.
Where to begin? I grew up (though many would dispute this) on the outer limits of Perth's metropolitan area, far enough from a good library that I had to make up my own sf and horror stories. I continued to do this when I should have been studying, and after false starts at two other universities, received a B.A. in Creative Writing and Film in 1984. Since then, I've held too many boring jobs and a few interesting ones, including actor, tutor, experimental subject, editorial assistant for Australian Physicist magazine, education officer and used dinosaur salesman for the WA Museum, and the manager of a science fiction bookshop. I've been writing for fun for more than thirty years, and for money for twenty; I sold my first short story in 1977, and my first novel in 1995. I quit yet another boring job in 1996 to write full time, and am currently working on two novels and (usually) writing one new story a month.
My novels are THE ART OF ARROW CUTTING (Tor, 1997) and FOREIGN BODIES (Tor, 1999); I've also written a non-fiction book BONE HUNTERS: ON THE TRAIL OF THE DINOSAURS (Omnibus, 1998), and 13 of my best short stories are collected THE LADY OF SITUATIONS (Ticonderoga Publications, 1999). A bibliography can be found at www.eidolon.net/stephen_dedman
I still live in Western Australia, and enjoy reading, travel, movies, complicated relationships, talking to cats, and startling people.
