G'day, I'm a 28 year old Australian bloke, just here to stretch out my favourite shows, movies, books and other fictional favourites with a pinch or two (or several mountainous heapings) of fan-inspired imagination.

I love to read. A lot. Constantly, in fact.

I'm primarily a science-fiction connoisseur by nature, both the written and the televised. My appetite in shows and movies has naturally shifted in accordance with the capricious whims of whichever executives make renewal decisions on shows and franchises. From a Trekkie primodial soup I emerged (a heritage handed down from family) and since then have enlisted with the adventures and adventurers of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, let myself get hooked on Firefly even though I already new it was cancelled when I started watching, taken my vows as a Whovian and follow the ways of NewWho (while familiarising myself with the Old Testament), laughed my way through Red Dwarf again and again and again. Eureka, X-Files, Warehouse 13, Sanctuary... a pinch of the more fantasy oriented as well - Legend of the Seeker, Grimm, Highlander.

When it comes to books I've read my fair share, definitely favouring the Greats such as Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen Baxter, Ben Bova, Greg Bear, David Brin, Peter F. Hamilton and many more besides. I do read electronic books but am on the whole a firm believer in 'tree-ware', I own many a hardcover and paperback. My favourite author being, for a long time now, Jim Butcher. His work in the Dresden Files and the Codex Alera series' just push the envelope of even my considerably elastic imagination.

In my view it is almost any author who can imagine and write what a large number of people would enjoy reading - but it takes very special, very talented authors to write what most people never imagined they would enjoy or simply a story that they could never imagine at all. It's that extra something that changes writing into story telling and turns good stories into unforgettable ones.

Many an author have I found here on FF Net who has some of that talent and insight and who have taken something already written or wrought and found yet more potential and possibility, who have reached down inside themselves and brought out something wonderful to share with anyone who comes looking - and for no other reason than they wanted to give it.

I wish I could say I too am such an author but frankly I so admire those qualities in others precisely because I somewhat lack them. I am filled with inspiration, with shining ideas and exotic notions which spark my synapses with the potential for story-telling but so very rarely am I able to translate that to words. Were it only possible someone else could write my stories for me so that I could see them written and enjoy them, but like so much of the fiction I read... that's not the world I live in.

As to the rather substantial listing which is my Favourite Stories selection, I consider them to be some of the finest reading to be found on this sight. I have enjoyed many, many thousands of the stories offered on FF Net, but enjoyment alone is insufficient to warrant making it onto my favourites list. Many aspects of a story may compel me to chose it, a particularly excellent characterisation, a brilliant alternative to canon, a well plotted storyline for excellent use of unexpected but clever twists, an idea or invention so unique and amazing or simply by being so very well worded and written. But above all else is how well a story captures the mind and lingers with me even after the words have stopped.

Also, perhaps my profile is verbose and some may consider it pretentious, but it must be said that it cannot be as sad a sight as many other profiles on FF Net.

To wit: If you are one of those people who doesn't feel the need to pollute their profile page with obscenely long lists of cutesy, pithy blurbs masquerading as declarations of the quirky and unique nature of your true self then DON'T copy and paste this into your profile. No really, please don't.