Some of the information that follows may be true...
Marcus was born in 1953, and is an educational laboratory technician, a job best described as working at the blunt edge of science - the picture is a rare shot of him working (Marcus is on the right) during trials of a new chemistry book. He is currently Senior Technician in a large London secondary school; unfortunately the educational funding provided by the local authority, Westminster City Council, means that in a school offering 160+ hours of science lessons a week in 7 laboratories, the "senior" in this title in fact implies "senior to the other laboratory technician". He is a school governor, and the longest-serving member of staff at his school.
He has been a blood donor since the 1970s and was recently given the Blood Transfusion Service gold badge for 50-times donors; he mentions this only to encourage others to volunteer, and not because it makes him feel really noble and smug...
He has been reading science fiction since he was about 8, and still wastes too much money on the stuff. He has been going to SF conventions and meetings since about 1971, and gaming since approximately 1976. He has too much sense to get involved in running SF conventions (much); he ran the games room at two Eastercons, Beccon and Contrivance, but has no great desire to repeat the experience. He often participates in panels and games at conventions, and regularly runs RPGs at conventions.
His hobbies include reading (especially fantasy and science fiction), writing, SF fandom, gaming, computing, herpetology, and trying to find time to sleep. He doesn't usually talk about himself in the third person.
(ed) The Astronef Collection (Now included in Forgotten Futures II)
The first printed version of Forgotten Futures was published as a free booklet with Future Publishing's Arcane magazine in 1997. This booklet is now very rare. It consists of the summary rules and introductory adventure, both of which are on line and on the Forgotten Futures CD-ROM.
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Magazine credits include articles, adventures, and games in numerous issues of White Dwarf, Challenge, Different Worlds, Dagon, Concepts, Imagine, The Dragon, Dungeon Magazine, 2000 AD (board game, no author credited), Fantasy Chronicles, Red Giant, Space Gamer, Games Trade Monthly, Games Review Monthly, New Scientist (not game-related), Strategy Plus, Role Player Independent, The Last Province, Journeys, Valkyrie, Ragnarok, Interactive Fantasy, Arcane, Odyssey, Pyramid On-Line, several computer magazines, and various other magazines and fanzines.
Short fiction has appeared in shared world collections edited by the Midnight Rose collective and published by Roc Books; Temps, Euro Temps, and The Weerde 2. These books have only appeared in the UK at the time of writing.
Author of the Fantasy Games article in The Encyclopaedia of Fantasy and co-author of the equivalent article in The Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction.
Last updated: December 2000, minor revisions March 2001-3.
Special thanks to Tim Illingworth for his help in preparing these pages, and to the users of uk.games.roleplay for their advice and comments.