Fantasy always held a special place in my heart as a boy. Edgar Rice Burrough's took me to many fabulous places through his various series - Pelucidar, Mars, Venus. Other great writers soon followed - J.R.R. Tolkien, Andre Norton, Mercedes Lackey, Anne McCaffery, R. A. Salvatorre. The fantasy world of elves, dwarves, ogres, orcs, and dragons fascinates and inspires in a way few other places can, which is why it touches even my Æthereal series. Whether the dragon was an evil ravening beast like Smaug or those wonderful partners on Pern, I found dragons were most often portrayed as more driven by nature than by their minds. The Æthereal Saga was born from the premise "What if the dragons were smarter than we were. How would our two species interact?" After spending 24 years traveling the world for the Air Force, I retired to South Carolina and presently work as an IS Regional Infrastructure Support Manager for a Fortune 500 company covering facilities from Florida to New Jersey, plus Wisconsin and Minnesota. I have six children, thirteen grandchildren and step-grandchildren, two dogs, and a library of over 1,500 books of almost every genre. You are invited to visit my website at: http: //christopherwilcox.wcpauthor.com