Strata ( 1981) also Parodies Niven in particular and other Hard-SF writers in general, in this case by depicting an artificial flat world embedded within Ptolemaic heavens – it is a Pocket Universe, in fact – seemingly constructed by the ancient Spindle Kings (one of many apparent sets of universe-shaping Forerunners), though in fact Builder Gods were responsible and much more of the galaxy's past has been faked than was suspected even by the most sceptical. The Dark Side of the Sun ( 1976), sf, makes gentle fun of the Alien-cluttered Known Space books of Larry Niven further targets, including Ron Goulart, Jack Vance, and favourite sf tropes like Macrostructures, mysterious Forerunners, Living Worlds and a Robot playing barrack-room lawyer with the Laws of Robotics, are also affectionately addressed. His first novel, The Carpet People ( 19), is a fantasy for children based on the Great and Small notion of a world of minute beings living among the (to them vast and forest-like) strands of a carpet (see Wainscot Society).
Early tales which first appeared in the Bucks Free Press and Western Daily Press 1965-1973 were collected as Dragons at Crumbling Castle and Other Stories (coll 2014) further such stories for the Western Daily Press, chiefly as by Patrick Kearns, were eventually traced and assembled as «A Stroke of the Pen: The Lost Stories» (coll 2023). For many years he was in full-time employment, as a journalist until 1980 – contributing many short stories to the Bucks Free Press "Children's Circle" section under the pseudonym "Uncle Jim" – and as a publicity officer for the Central Electricity Generating Board until 1987 as a consequence, his early books were written and published intermittently. (1948-2015) UK author who began publishing with "The Hades Business" in Science Fantasy in 1963, collected with other (mostly early) stories as A Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction (coll 2012).
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