Laurie Penman

Laurie Penman is a mechanical engineer and inventor with a strong interest in history particularly Romano-British history. At a time when he was confined to hospital bed after having a couple of vertebrae fused he became interested in what might have been the result if history had been just a little bit different - and he started to write Seeds of Empire whilst lying flat on his back with stern instructions not to move while the chips of bone in his spine became firmly cemented. It is not easy...See more

Laurie Penman is a mechanical engineer and inventor with a strong interest in history particularly Romano-British history. At a time when he was confined to hospital bed after having a couple of vertebrae fused he became interested in what might have been the result if history had been just a little bit different - and he started to write Seeds of Empire whilst lying flat on his back with stern instructions not to move while the chips of bone in his spine became firmly cemented. It is not easy writing whilst supine and he only managed a hundred pages or so but when the ward dragon permitted him to get out of bed, writing became much faster. Over the years the first book grew and was joined by three and half more (the latest will appear next year (2016) we hope) and Laurie has watched the growth of Camelod and its North European empire with a great deal of pleasure. Many developments in technology gave Camelod the strength to resist the mighty Roman Empire and seemed at one time to be too fast to be credited but a little historical research showed that what took place over thirty three years in the fictional empire only took twenty eight in the real world of 1772 to 1800. See less