Alan Zendell - Writer

Alan Zendell spent more than forty years as a scientist, aerospace engineer, software consultant, database developer, and government analyst. He spent two years working on the first manned lunar mission, then moved on to a variety of near-Earth satellite projects, and Pentagon support for anti-ballistic missile systems. As the aerospace industry became more oriented toward the military, he applied his skill set to health care and social service systems, and ultimately branched out into software and database consulting.

No matter what he did to earn a living, he never lost his fascination with science fiction and speculating about the future. He always wrote a lot, but it was generally really boring stuff like proposals and technical papers, reports, business letters, and policy memoranda. But trapped inside him all that time were stories he wanted to tell and ideas he wanted to share, so with encouragement and cajoling from a loving baby sister he plunged into fiction.

He has written several short pieces in a variety of genres and completed five novel manuscripts, three of which have three of which have found their way into print and e-books. “Wednesday’s Child” is hard science fiction with a different twist on time travel; “The Portal” is a science-fiction love story set in a dystopian twenty-second century America; and “Critical Focus” is a contemporary political novel that addresses the major issues facing present-day America. But regardless of the story lines and subject matter, his writing is about more than aliens and technical marvels. He creates strong, three-dimensional characters a reader can care about, because it’s people and the way they live and feel that are important. It’s the things they believe in and how much they’re willing to invest to preserve them that make a story worth telling. It’s convincing interactions and well-researched credible plots that make a story worth reading.