Bernard Gallivan

I have been writing for my own amusement for over 20 years but have never seriously tried to get published. When I read about some published authors who just kept going until they were successful, I feel I might have let myself down a bit. Perhaps I should have tried harder.

I live in Edinburgh and am married with two children and four grandchildren. My background is in computers and I came to Scotland to head up a library-based computer project with the aim of encouraging Librarians to look more positively at computers and what they could achieve if used properly. When I first arrived in Scotland some 40 years ago, there was not a single computer operating in any Scottish library, including university, public, private, etc. libraries. Clearly the time was propitious and perhaps I did something right because now there can hardly be a single library in Scotland that does not operate dozens of the computing devices. It was all so different 40 years ago when even cheap computers tended to cost £100,000s and more and needed dedicated staff to operate them. But enough of my past.

In addition to Switched, which is my only Science Fiction novel, I have written three detective novels focused on the work of DI Ralph Kingdom a police officer in what was the Lothian and Borders Police Force (Why do they keep changing everything?) and the first of these, "New Blood" is also available through Amazon while the second, "Black Festival" will shortly be published. The third novel in the Inspector Kingdom series is called "The strange death of Annabelle Ferguson" will become available next year. In addition, I have written a three-part series called "The St Kilda Chronicles". The St Kilda novels follow a group of 46 people who escape from the mainland of Britain to set up a colony on St Kilda, the small, rocky archipelago that lies 100 miles off the west coast of Scotland. At the time of the escape, in 2050, the entire world is in meltdown and hiding out on St Kilda seems to be a good option. Unfortunately, the group loses its means of escape from the island just a few years after arriving. At that time they are not overly concerned because of what is happening in the rest of the world and because they believe they will either be rescued or will find a way to escape. But 100 years later they are still there. Book 1 covers the first three years; Book 2 deals with the situation 10 years on while Book 3 covers the plight of the islanders 100 years later. The first two parts of the trilogy are also available on Amazon while the third part will become available later this year.

I have also written many short stories, usually of a humorous nature, and it is my intention to make these available through my web site when I find the time. My web site also includes reflections and recollections of past incidents.