Years ago I read his first book, Red Hope and I really liked it. The characters (I felt) were authentic. I had a few questions and since I was invited to write the author in the back of the book, I did.

He emailed me back. We have been occasionally communicating ever since.

He used an idea I proposed for a short story prequal to Red Hope and I am pretty proud of it (so is he). Anyway, the audio book version is free on Youtube. He also has some cool videos on telescopes and you can tell, the Nerd is strong with this one