ABOUT Hal J Finley
I was born in Muskoka, Ontario. My career in mining and the nuclear industry spanned over 30 years taking me to a variety of colorful communities and to some of the most remote areas the planet has to offer.
Learn more about me and follow my journey leading up to my debut speculative fiction action novel on Substack below...
My Background Story
The bio above provides the basics, so I’ll focus on stuff that may have contributed to my interest in fiction writing;
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My grade five teacher liked a scary story that I wrote and her modest praise was like a spark wired straight to my brain and still resonates today (thank you Miss Unsworth)
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My parents ran a gas station/restaurant for several years in Muskoka (Jacks Sunoco). The restaurant featured a Wurlitzer Juke Box and a black metal (merry-go-round style) stand for comic books that my brother and I would read while my sister and mother worked their buns off in the restaurant. I learned all about Superman, The Fantastic Four, Archie – etc (I liked Veronica!)
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A few years later, I read all the James Bond novels and stuff like that. Not the type of reading material that gets universities cueing up at the doorstep, but still…
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I reluctantly grew up when life required I pay bills associated with marriage and stuff – you know the routine. There was no book writing happening back then, but the idea was there and travel kept that spark alive.
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I had the good fortune to work for mining companies (I could blow stuff up, at work – it was perfect). I eventually ended up working in a corporate office and travel was part of the job. A variety of non-descript places were fun but not that memorable.
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Occasionally I found myself in a place that truly qualified as exotic. Usually remote, occasionally dangerous and always interesting.
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Places like the Boroo Gold mine located in the rolling hills of north central Mongolia, about 110 kilometers from the Mongolian capitol of Ulaanbaatar,
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Places like the Kumtor Gold Mine located in Kyrgyzstan, located in the remote Issyk-Kul region, high in the Tian Shan mountain range, about 350 kilometers from the (now former) capital city of Bishkek. It remains one of the world’ highest open pit gold mines (13,000 feet above sea level)
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Places like the JV Inkai uranium minesite located in south central Kazakhstan near the small village of Taikonur. It’s claim to fame (other than the mine site) is the fun fact that you can see (barely) rockets launched from the Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome, with best viewing at night to clearly see the rockets red fiery tail moving across the night sky.
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Places like Baffinland iron ore mine, located in the Canadian high Arctic with its polar bears and arctic rabbits as big as arctic foxes, 24 hour darkness with the sun setting in November and not showing itself until late January. To make up for that absence, the sun shines 24 hours a day from May to August.
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These types of exotic places/experiences finally ignited that spark left by Miss Unsworth many years ago and a fiction story slowly came together, in my imagination, and would not go quietly into the night. It grew and pestered me until one day – I STARTED TO WRITE!
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Actually the writing was preceded by several months of research and other types of preparation…
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The sci-fi, time travel, love story, action adventure novel took two years to write (and rewrite, and rewrite…) then one year to publish (thank you editors and promo folks)
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At some point during the writing of this novel, I discovered – It’s a series, not a stand-alone story! Book #2 is currently under construction…
