David Herter

David Herter is an American author. He began publishing work of genre interest with "The Late Mr Havel's Apartment" the interest in Czech life and history in this story proving to shape his later career, though his first novel, Ceres Storm (2000), which is a modern Fantastic Voyage tale that follows a young man across the solar system in his search for the Ur-being of whom he--and his AI companion--are avatars. As usual in the Hidden Monarch tale [see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below], Young Adult implications and structuring are here subsumed under the darker implications of any quest for the fount of being. Herter's later work, though Equipoisal, is perhaps best read as fantasy: Evening's Empire (2002), suffusing the story of an attempt to produce an opera based on Jules Verne, does introduce Vernian material. The First Republic Trilogy--On the Overgrown Path (2006), The Luminous Depths (2008) and One Who Disappeared (dated 2011 but 2012)--is a meditation on the relationships between art and history set in interbellum Czechoslovakia, and featuring characters like Karel Capek and Franz Kafka; in the third volume, the historical composer Pavel [here Paul] Haas (1899-1944) returns via Time Travel from an Alternate History post-World War Two America to confront the darkening circumstances he may only have dreamed he had escaped. Herter lives in Seattle, Washington, where he attended the Clarion West writing workshop.