Richard Fawkes grew up surrounded by books and developed an early fascination for military history that continues to this day. Occasionally, he can be cajoled into admitting, without details, to time spent as a small unit commander and a close combat specialist. At the present time his martial activities are confined to the practice of historical European martial arts. When not devising stories of the Eridani and Humankind's War with the Remor, Fawkes works as a designer of icons for manually controlled tactical simulations.