Hey there! My name is Tomo Umer and I am the author of this webpage and the writing contained on it.*
*but only if you enjoy it. If you don’t, then, uh, it’s a friend writing this, or possibly some generative AI tool. Why not both? Yeah. A friend using a non-descript generative AI tool. Definitelly not me.
I’ll begin by copy pasting my bio that I recently updated when publishing my second novel, Deathway (don’t tell me I don’t recycle!):
There are two aspects of my life that consistently go hand in hand: science and fiction.
I was born in Koper, Slovenia and studied Particle Physics in Trieste, Italy. Meeting the love of my life, Claire, on Reddit took me on a journey over the Atlantic Ocean. I ended up working in behavioral health in mid Tennessee untill a Data Science bootcamp with the Nashville Software School opened the doors for me to continue applying my love for data and science.
Parallel to all that, I’ve also explored countless fantastical (and real) worlds. From Asterix and Obelix, through Age of Empires and Civilization, all the way to Elden Ring and Oppenheimer. If there’s a good story, I’m there for it!
To reiterate, I enjoy storytelling with both words and numbers alike – and that applies to what we call real life, as well as fantasy. I do struggle to answer the question of what kind of writer I am, or what kind of stories I write other than saying “fiction”. For right now, I’m experimenting with different ideas and themes. I enjoy both fantasy and science fiction. So … I’ll just answer 42.
For what’s worth, I personally don’t see a strict separation between fantasy and science fiction. To me it can all be viewed through the lens of a different universe than ours. In good stories, any kind of magic (magic as in, using completely different forces and physics laws known to us), needs to make sense and have some kind of internal logic that remains consistent. And if it doesn’t, well, things start to fall apart. Not different at all from a new technology that hasn’t been invented yet, that our ancestors might as well have considered magic.
Anyway, all I’m trying to do is write stories that I enjoy writing! And if you want a glimpse, feel free to head to my fiction page. Thank you for reading!
Tomo Umer 