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I moved around a lot as a young person but by sixth grade we settled in California. My undergrad years were spent at the University of California at Berkeley in the mid-to-late sixties. It was an "interesting" time with everything from the Free Love to the Free Speech movements. The sentiments of the time ran cross-grain to my family's values, but a very personal encounter with some run-amok riot police gave me reason to question blind adherence. These were the good guys?
My newfound awareness did not keep me from the Viet Nam adventure. My grandfather was a career navy officer and briefly commanded a submarine before WWI. In addition to being a doctor, my father was, at various times, an Army Air Corps and Air Force flight surgeon and finally a Coast Guard officer. Duty called and in 1969 I was proud to be commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps. Why the Marines? I read Heinlein's Starship Troopers in high school! Still an all-time favorite.
I trained as both an infantry and combat engineer officer and served in Viet Nam in the lovely Da Nang region. On my return from sunny 'Nam I ventured briefly into motorcycle racing, trying Grand Prix-type road racing, motocross, and finally desert racing, all in one year! My successes were few but I was only run over once.
In 1972 I left the Corps and went to graduate school in chemistry at Oregon State, leaving with a PhD in 1977. Then it was off to Canada, where in 1979 I became a chemistry (analytical) professor at McGill University in Montreal.
Among my scientific interests is the field of artificial intelligence, specifically "artificially intelligent" instruments. My first sabbatical leave was in 1989 at the Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT. This was a jaw-dropping experience, and I am eternally grateful to Patrick Winston for hosting me. The exposure provided the framework for one of my science fiction books, The Transition War. With respect to science, to date, I've published over 130 peer-reviewed papers, most of which have been appreciated by only a discerning few. I've trained almost twenty PhDs and several Master's students. I find the corruption of young minds to be particularly fulfilling and am delighted to have known such really fine people.
With a divorce just behind me, a certain false sense of freedom swept over me in the early twenty-first century, so I bought a motorcycle. Within a few years, I was back to Grand Prix road-racing, which I did for five years with little success but a huge smile. When I turned sixty, after calculating the odds based on my average of two crashes a year, I stopped racing. At one time I had, sharing with my daughter, seven motorcycles split between two countries, the US and Canada.
I now live in California with my wife, Helen. She's a divorce lawyer, so the skids are greased. Between Helen, writing, and my Ducati, life is more than just "interesting'."
Checkout ericsalin.com for photos and more info on the books and their backgrounds.
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