Hugh Duncan hatched in Leicester in 1957. He studied astronomy at University College London and, though very lazy, got his degree. His final thesis was on Martian craters and, after, he worked at the UCL observatory cataloguing the Viking Mission photos. Having fallen in love with a French woman and wanting to live happily ever after, he ruined that plan by becoming a science teacher. The temporary job became a lifelong career, first in the UK then for 32 years at the International School of Nice, from which he has recently retired. A few years ago, UCL launched the maths journal Chalkdust, in which Hugh has had a number of articles published. In 1997 Oxford Study Courses, asked him to write revision guidebooks for IB Physics, which continues to this day. Hugh started in science fiction aged five, when he wrote 'Dr Who goes to the balloon planet' and some have said it's his best work to date. Nearly sixty years later, Life on Mars is his first published novel. Inspired by the Mighty Terry Pratchett, for school charity projects he started writing his own 'Deskworld' stories, parodying his school as one for witches and wizards. Three dozen stories sold using a captive audience scared of getting bad grades if they didn't buy them, hmm... Hugh has been married for 40 years and has four children - most don't seem to want to leave home in spite of being adults and having to listen to his songs and stories all the time. He lives in the South of France, not very far from the village with two famous house martins who appear in Life on Mars. He owns a Hermann's tortoise called Sophie Rose.