1. Tell us a bit about yourself
I live in the USA in Texas. My many decade career was two-fold: engineering in defense and aerospace contractors...made it up to VP of Engineering and Naval Intelligence, up to the O-5 level. Last major bit of military service was a year spent in Iraq supporting JSOC. I am married and have 2 dogs; a male black Labrador Retriever and a male black Great Dane.
2. What books and authors apart from FX Holden do you enjoy or recommend?
I prefer to read independent authors like Tim (FX)...and am currently going through ML Buchman's Nightstalkers series. He is fairly accurate in his military stuff but I am NOT a fan of the 'romance' parts of his novels....pretty much gloss over those parts. He also has a series about an NTSB crash investigation team. The earlier books in that series are the best.
3. What was the first book you were a beta reader for?
I'm pretty sure it was Okinawa.
4. You have given input on several FX Holden books, what do you enjoy about it?
Fabulous and well-researched 'future tech'; interesting character development, characters who move across books, i.e., they show up again; intriguing and somewhat complicated plotlines.
5. Are there downsides to being a beta reader?
The timeline is the only downside...these books I like to savor, so having to produce relatively quick feedback is frustrating. However, Beta reader feedback frequently results in changes to the text...so I can savor the final version, when I get it, because I know it will be slightly different from the original.
6. What book(s) is/are next on your To Be Read pile?
The final revised version of Dnipro and about 25 eBooks of other authors on my Kindle.
7. What is the image you use as your avatar?
A meme some folks in Ukraine did for me. I have volunteered to assist Ukraine, but am considered to be too old to fly drones for the Ukrainian military, but donate to them for what I believe to be a very just cause. One of my donations resulted in that meme. It used an image of me from my time in Iraq.