Malcolm Cowen
Author | Manchester, England, UK |
Website
Malcolm Cowen is a freelance software designer living in Manchester, UK. He’s spent most of the last 5 decades writing everything from operating systems (GEOrge 3) to games (Colossal Cave for Dragon 32). He currently does database backends for website designers. They make it look pretty, he makes it work, which clearly qualifies him as a 5.... more
Malcolm Cowen is a freelance software designer living in Manchester, UK. He’s spent most of the last 5 decades writing everything from operating systems (GEOrge 3) to games (Colossal Cave for Dragon 32). He currently does database backends for website designers. They make it look pretty, he makes it work, which clearly qualifies him as a 5 anorak nerd.
Over the years he’s picked up German, Welsh, a bit of French and is currently learning Anglo-Saxon.
He writes in his spare time, books and scripts, mainly science fiction or fantasy, together with some poetry and translations from Welsh.
Malcolm started writing about 19 years ago and had some 30 or so stories published, mainly by a now defunct trade magazine, Freelance Informer. You can find more about him at www.ebook.cowensw.co.uk, together with some poetry and translations from Welsh. His translation of the Welsh Song Calon Lan has appeared on the BBC and on a Russell Watson Album.
More recently Malcolm has had 2 novels, "Lady of Foxdale" and "Daughter of the King", published on Kindle, several short stories published both on paper and electronically and a couple of scifi whodunit audio scripts which have been broadcast on local radio, see www.levenshulmeplayers.co.uk.
Malcolm's preference is for hard sf with detailed alternative cultures. It matters to get the scientific details right, or at least to get them credible. Then the story should follow, and if it's a good story, it should grow naturally out of the world and the culture it's set in.
If it's fantasy, then similar rules should apply. Build a consistent world, with a believable culture, and then tell a story of real people living in that world. That's far more fun than space opera or yet another Dracula ripoff.
It's almost more fun than should be legal.