Alex Pemberton biography

I was born in 1979 at the London Middlesex Hospital to a Yugoslavian mother and an English father. My first memories of growing up were of Finchley where I lived for four years before my parents moved to Hertfordshire.

At a very young age my imagination used to transport me to different worlds and I was constantly thinking up ideas for stories. It was when I was fairly young that my love of science fiction and fantasy began to grow. Every year my mother would take me to Croatia for family holidays. During most of the holiday all I did was dream up stories for books and films. I invented monsters and mystical creatures but of course at such a young age you can hardly start writing a book.

After leaving school I studied A-Level English and Psychology but became bored with studying very quickly. I was keener on earning money than studying. After leaping from job to job, I eventually decided to study 'the knowledge' of London and become a licensed taxi driver. The opportunity of working as much as I liked and choosing flexible hours tempted me. It is a great job if you are serious about pursuing a writing career.

Whilst studying 'the knowledge' for three years I began to write my first book. During the following three years I wrote 135,000 words. There was no structure to my work, the story didn't make complete sense. The geographical positioning of my world was completely wrong. I had to start the book from scratch. However, I wasn't too disheartened; I just looked on it as a practice run.

Even in my early teens I was very tempted to commence writing a novel, but wasn't entirely convinced that the world loved magic, monsters and mystical worlds. But when JK Rowling rose to fame with her Harry Potter series and Peter Jackson brought out the LOTR my attitude changed. Suddenly I realised that Sci-fi and the fantasy genre were probably the most popular groups.�

I wrote the first book with the intention of following it up with many more. The Rise of the Goolan Empire is around fifteen percent of my proposed work. I am hoping to write many more Tibian Adventure books and a further story at the end which will just be a book explaining missing events and unexplained tales. I would also like to add illustrations in the book from scenes in the Tibian Adventure.

The entire Tibian Adventure series will be a gargantuan follow on. In other words, as the first book ends the second book begins, so in theory it will be one long book of around a million or so words. Each book will obviously have a different title as every one will be telling a different story, but will ultimately lead to the final book.

I believe that if I had the chance to write full time, I would almost certainly be capable of completing two good size novels per year. Following the Tibian Adventure I am planning a science fiction series ( The Guardian of the Gallangulan) and a horror novel.

Influences