Martin Simons – författare

Michael Ingram has a lonely existence as a twenty-eight-year-old consulting engineer. Almost all his work is done with computers and transmitted to clients electronically. His hobby is cabinet making, but he alone sees and uses the products of his workshop.

He finds solace in with Jacquie, a sex worker who visits weekly. After one of Jacquies visits, they discover a teenage girl, victim of a brutal assault, dying in the road. Michael gets her to hospital. Jacquie warns him not to get involved with the filthy little rat. He rejects her advice.

While still in the hospital, Jenny begins to draw and reveals great talent as an artist. She sketches a rat in a cage to represent herself. Her mother being untraceable and in any case hated by the girl, she decides to live with Michael.

Jenny creates a sculpture of herself and Michael fused and growing toward the sky like a blossoming tree. Jenny grows and matures.

She makes friends and brings them into Michaels life. Under her influence, he too begins to develop. The pair must be careful about how they express their affection for each other.

The novel tackles the topic of sexual consent as well as issues plaguing the foster care system.

Cities at Sea is a story set a couple of thousand years from now. Land-based civilization collapsed long ago as a result of climate change, flooding and impoverishment of soils, wars, and other causes. Knowing that about three quarters of the globe is covered by the sea, all the major coastal cities of the globe saved themselves by moving onto the oceans, developing gigantic, highly sophisticated, entirely self-sufficient rafts on which they now navigate at will. Life is easy in the raft cities for those who conform but is strictly disciplined under constant surveillance.

Sal is a restless young woman who longs for something exciting. She imagines a more intimate connection with the sea and its creatures. She seeks help from a renowned genetic scientist. This leads to extraordinary adventures and changes in her and the city where she now lives. The story ends as a new era begins.

Peter Markham is a schoolteacher who has been abandoned by his female partner because she, rightly, considers him dull.

He tries to change himself, seeking adventure by joining a course at a gliding club. Disappointed, he leaves the airfield in anger when a wild teenage girl forces him to stop, begging for help in retrieving her older stepsister, Julia, who has landed her glider in a hayfield a hundred kilometres away.

He allows himself to be manipulated by Mitch, the younger girl, calling her a cunning little minx. Reluctantly, he does as she asks.

This is the beginning of a series of life-changing experiences for him. Instructed by the older sister, he learns to fly, finds himself in love with the sport and with young Mitch, while confronting serious problems with Julia.

Tragedy intervenes, but happier prospects emerge.