J.R. Hardcastle

J.R. Hardcastle is the pen name of a writer working in financial services. The Earth Run is their first novel.

The book has been a long time arriving. Its preoccupations are mine: what kinds of competence the world rewards and what kinds it overlooks; how belonging gets built when you've spent your life between two cultures and not quite at home in either; the quiet, persistent wish for something to happen that would call you out of an ordinary week and ask you to be useful. Jake Reilly came out of those questions.

There's no grand reason for the pen name. Partly the day job, partly first-novel nerves. Mostly it spares my colleagues from having to pretend they've read it.

It is probably worth adding that I love science fiction. I grew up on The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Stargate SG-1 and Enterprise. Andy Weir's The Martian and Hugh Howey's Wool are the kind of books that made me want to write one. The Earth Run is what came out when I tried.