First get your facts right, then distort them at leisure - Mark Twain

When I first saw Stargate I was delighted by the modern-day homage to the imaginative writings of HP Lovecraft and the eclectic bunch who followed, from Immanuel Velikovsky and Lyall Watson to Erich von Däniken and L Ron Hubbard.

Lovecraft was, of course, the first to link ancient gods to evil extraterrestrials who once lived in a city beneath the Antarctic ice cap. A gifted storyteller, he encouraged his fans to write in the world he created, but he never claimed his ideas were anything other than fiction. L Ron Hubbard expanded on Lovecraft's stories, but rather than remaining a starving pulp fiction writer, Hubbard capitalized on his fan base by starting a religion, and went on to claim his ETs were real. Smart cookie. Almost as smart as the producers of Stargate, who knew the real money was in syndication and merchandising. I'm currently writing my Master's on the resultant lunacy, appropriately titled, I feel, 'The Attraction of Sloppy Nonsense'.

The purpose of all good fiction is to entertain and hopefully to inspire. Science Fiction has always served another function, and that has been to examine the human condition; it is a window into the soul of society.

The novels I have written in the Stargate world are science fiction. While the contents may be based on real, scientific facts, and the cultures on historical documents and anthropological theory, every  (honest) scientist and historian will tell you that those 'facts' are fluid, at best, because they are viewed through the lens of our contemporary scientific and cultural predujices. City of the Gods is a story that amalgamates historical records with Stargate mythology to create verisimilitude. While many aspects of the story are based on what is known about Aztec and Mayan cultures, it is nevertheless a work of ficton. Roswell is also work of fiction based on actual events - whatever they may be. As to the truth, well, as Chris Carter so aptly phrased it, 'The Truth Is Out There'.

Enjoy.