I. Michael Koontz was born in 1963, and is a physician in the Midwest U.S. with his wife and two children. Under Cloak of Darkness (July 2006) and A Matter of Revenge (Sept 2008) are the first of what he plans to be many books based on the life of Superagent John Apparite.

What are John Apparite's origins? As a youngster, the author loved the films of James Bond, and in his twenties read (and re-read) every Bond book in print, starting a fascination with the Cold War (his favorite Bond books, by the way, are From Russia With Love and Moonraker; his favorite Bond films are From Russian With Love, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and For Your Eyes Only--the 'modern' Bond films, unfortunately, leave him cold: Too much babe-bagging! Too many explosions!--though Casino Royale wasn't half bad, except for that over-blown scene at the end in Venice. Why, oh why can't they have a small, intimate confrontation with the bad guy at the end? Do they have to destroy an entire block of Venice to do it?)

Naturally, though, Ian Fleming's creation proved an inspiration for John Apparite since, the author suspects, 007 is an inspiration for nearly everyone who writes or loves spy stories. In a practical sense, however, Bond can be seen as more of an anti-influence for the character of John Apparite: Bond (especially in the films) is tall, unusually handsome, debonair, confident, scores a lot of chicks, and uses a Walther PPK. Apparite, by contrast, is short, young, 'cute' (he's no Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan, that's for certain), has panic attacks, loves the Washington Senators, occasionally makes mistakes, and uses a Colt Super Automatic. Bond is Bond; Apparite is Apparite. There are scores of secret agents in literature and film like James Bond but there's only one like John Apparite, and that's a large part of the reason why the author likes him.

Another influence includes the famed Aubrey-Maturin series of Patrick O'Brian, especially in the interplay between its two main characters and in those works' historical accuracy and detail. Much as Jack Aubrey's tale was told in over twenty books in unbroken, chronological order, so will John Apparite's (and over as many books as the author can comfortably write and get published). It is mere coincidence, by the way, that Jack Aubrey and John Apparite share initials. Really it is.

A final influence, though on literally a more global level, are the works of JRR Tolkien. In his books and writings on Middle Earth, Professor Tolkien created a believable, tremendously detailed 'secondary world' that brought everything he wrote to life and seem real; so much so, that some persons wish to believe the Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings to be an actual pre-history of the planet Earth! (I'm not joking.)

The world of John Apparite--of Superagents, Shadow-agents, SMERSH assassins, cane-guns, microdot readers, the Director, his liaisons, the White Oriental, etc.--will hopefully be expanded upon in enough believable detail to someday, perhaps, have the same effect on readers of the Apparite books: Maybe, some readers might wonder, just maybe this really all did happen! Maybe it's all true and only being disguised by being in the fiction section! Hmmm….

Back to the author. His credentials? He has a B.A. from a Small Private College (plus a graduate degree from a Big Ten University) having majored in Biology though taking a sampling of many other types of courses as well (Econ 101, Psych 101, Socio 101, Everything 101) in an attempt to become 'well-rounded,' whatever the hell that is. He wrote for his college newspaper, doing the same again in graduate school, plus he studied a bit of writing in college, too, but found in the end that there is no substitute for learning how to do it the old-fashioned way: by sitting down as doing as much of it as possible. Writing, he found out the hard way, is as much a practiced, learned skill as it is an art.

To prepare for the Apparite books the author did much reading and researching which, while intense and time-consuming, was not too difficult--he's spent his whole life reading and researching various aspects of history and popular culture, including the Cold War, the history of baseball, motion pictures, the Second World War, and the RMS Titanic. His other hobbies include cooking (especially of ethnic foods); gardening; a love of Formula One automobile racing; good beer; and science. Note that that was good beer--he has no patience for watered-down American mega-brews. The Apparite books reflect some of these interests, finally giving the author a chance to use a bit of what he's read and learned over the years in a useful manner, since it doesn't seem to have done him much good otherwise (sadly, as a child, his favorite leisure book was The World Book Encyclopedia in 20-odd volumes--please, promise not to tell anyone). More information on him is contained in the articles on this web site, so if you're interested, read on.