Josh Conviser

I wrote Echelon to be a gripping, spy-fi thriller, mixing a little Robert Ludlum with William Gibson. It's a genre buster, you might say.

I wanted to write something that would be fun, fast and riveting ' and I took a roundabout route getting there.

It started in Aspen, Colorado, where I grew up, took me to Santa Barbara, California for high school and then to Princeton University. I then hopped around, living in Europe, Asia and Australia ' doing research of course! An avid mountaineer, I climbed in ranges around the world, including the Himalayas, before giving up the mountains for the jungles of Hollywood to pursue a career in screenwriting. It worked out pretty well; I became the Executive Consultant on HBO's series, Rome, and sold a film to Fox.

But, all the while, I had this twitch in the back of my mind ' this idea about the NSA's eavesdropping program that just wouldn't die. Finally, I got down to it and wrote Echelon. That was three years ago. Since then, the NSA's eavesdropping has become front page news ' making Echelon topical. Beyond being an edge-of-your-seat read, Echelon illuminates the possible consequences of the road we're headed down now. So, I guess that roundabout route got me to the right place at the right time.