When I was much younger, attending high school, in Bountiful, Utah, I read a fascinating story by novelist James Thurber, entitled The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. It was delightful reading and was made into a popular movie of the same name starring Danny Kaye... one of my longtime favorite movies of all time.
I was thumbing through books on my bookshelf the other day when I came across the Thurber classic, and the thought occurred to me to attempt to write a short novel with a similar storyline structure as Walter Mitty. The Many Lives of Skylar Smedlap is what emerged a short time later. It was sheer fun putting flesh on the concept and bringing Skylar Smedlap to life.
As with all my novels, the background historical setting for the stories is as factually correct as I was able to discover and affirm through extensive research. However, some of the back stories are patently autobiographical stuff that I myself lived through at one time or another in my unremarkable life. The adventures of Skylar Smedlap set in those historical settings are, of course, pure fiction, bringing into the storyline incidents of time and space travel, and many instances of pure fantasy.