Dave Duncan made a major and apparently smooth career transition at the age of fifty-three, from geological consultant to professional writer. In the course of his relatively short career he has developed an authorial voice that is intelligent and witty, and he has become one of the major Canadian fantasy and science-fiction novelists. In an unpublished e-mail interview in July 1998 Duncan commented that he "half jumped and half got pushed" into his new field.

David John Duncan was born on 30 June 1933 in Newport-on-Tay, Scotland, to Norman Duncan, a flax manufacturer, and Winifred Anderson, a homemaker with a background in domestic-science teaching. He has one brother, Michael, a retired agriculturist. After studying at Dundee High School, Duncan attended the University of St. Andrews; on his website, http:// www.daveduncan.com, he jokes that he played "not one hole of golf all the time I was there." He received his...