About

 

Tony Benson

Author

I was born in the year lasers were invented, the word aerospace was first coined and the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, burned up in the Earth's atmosphere after three months in orbit. It was also the year Michael Jackson, Andrea Bocelli and Madonna were born, Elvis Presley joined the army and the De Havilland Comet was the first airline to fly a jet passenger service across the Atlantic.

After a successful career in engineering, spanning three decades, I decided corporate life wasn't for me. I went solo, making stringed instruments and writing.

I live in Kent, England with my wife Margo and our cat. I write both non-fiction and fiction. Brass and Glass: Optical Instruments and Their Makers is my principal work of non-fiction. An Accident Of Birth was my first published novel, and Galactic Alliance: Betrayal my second.

My fiction books are high on action, drama and suspense. I like to offer a thought provoking look at events which just might happen, and allow my characters to form their own opinions, which inevitably leads them to battle out good against bad, strong against weak and the powerful against the seemingly impotent.

I write fiction for many reasons. First and foremost I do so because I enjoy writing, but more than that, I do so because I have something to say. I write because I like to bring hope to anyone who thinks they lack the power to take control of their lives. I write because good really can triumph over bad in the end. I write because I believe most people are good in their hearts, and when people do bad things it's too easy to judge them without knowing the underlying fears, sickness or hopelessness which lead them to such acts.

We live in a world in which the values demonstrated by our politicians, law makers, religious leaders and industrialists are often in stark conflict with the hopes and needs of those of us who are not so privileged. It may sometimes seem that without such privilege we have no power to make a difference, but that is not true. My characters discover how they really can make their lives, and the lives of others, better even when they have to battle seemingly overwhelming odds to do so.