After taking a B.A. in English and Latin at the University of Alberta and an M.A. in English Literature at York University in Toronto, I worked through the 1970s as a proofreader, manager of a small bookstore, and editor of a major resource study by the Alberta Forest Service, while taking enough time off to explore that interesting decade and to work on my own projects. I then spent some years as an editor of debates and proceedings at the legislatures of Alberta and British Columbia. (Here I gained a thorough contempt for parliament, an institution that exists solely to give the appearance of democracy, while lavishly rewarding a crowd of sycophants to keep power in the hands of a very few.) I then helped design some unsuccessful adventure games for a venture company, before finally ending up at Microsoft, where I spent a decade or so writing documentation for software development kits, focusing on DirectX, common controls, and accessibility technologies.

To contact me, mail “peter” at this domain.

Publications

Books:

  • Hsiang Ch’i: The Chinese Game of Chess (Wargames Research Group, 1974)
  • Inside DirectX (Microsoft Press, 1998, with Brad Bargen)

Board games:

Commercial computer games:

  • Awesome Adventures of Victor Vector and Yondo (wrote scripts for three episodes)
  • Ripley’s Believe It or Not: The Riddle of Master Lu (adventure game for PC; developed story and puzzles)

E-books: see Skookum Editions.