Markussen & Lance

C. R. (Chuck) Markussen grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and still retains a love for the Midwest.  He received a master’s degree in electrical engineering from UCLA, and worked in aerospace for 35 years.  Now retired from engineering, he has taken his fascination with alternate realities and written a series of fantasy novels:  Eccenwhil(published 2016), Through Silvered Glass (published 2017), Beyond Reality’s Mirror (published 2018), and Only One(published 2021).  These novels make up the Infinity’s End series, and were preceded by the short fantasy, The Christmas Store – A Humble Miracle (published 2015), which introduced the characters whose extraordinary lives are chronicled in the series.

​

Part of his renewed interest in the Midwest involves the old North Shore Line, an interurban electric railway that was abandoned in 1963.  This ghostly railroad returns to haunt the landscape of his characters, connecting the cities, towns, and countryside of Wisconsin and Illinois—and providing a gateway to alternate realities.

​

Chuck also writes in the thriller/espionage genre.  The Reality of Fiction (co-authored by friend and former co-worker Stephen Lance) was published in 2016.  The sequel, The Reality of Chaos, was published in 2018.

​

His sister, Leslie M. Carringer, has provided editing and publication support for all of his books. 

He lives in Tucson, Arizona, with Cathie Bishop.  He has two grown children, Prairie and Nathan.  Prairie and her husband, Joe, live in Chicago, along with their daughter, Ceridwen.  Nathan lives in Portland, Oregon.

​

​

​

​

​

Steve Lance’s early years were lived in several southeast Pennsylvania communities where he spent summers in the Pocono Mountains and graduated from high school in Wyomissing, near Reading.  He moved to Philadelphia in 1973, where he studied Music Education at Temple University and participated in musical groups with a focus on brass bands.  

 

Steve moved to Southern California in 1977 and lived in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties for 17 years, until his move to Tucson, Arizona, in 1994.  In California, he studied math and computer science and commenced a career with a major aerospace and defense company that would continue for more than 30 years.  These years in the industry, where his focus was on weapon systems analysis and operations research, were the inspiration for his first novel, co-authored by Chuck Markussen.  

 

Now in retirement, Steve explores his passions for music and photography, enjoys occasional golf and travel, and continues his work with Chuck on sequels to The Reality of Fiction.  He plays several instruments and lives virtually through some of the players in their novels.  Steve lives in Tucson with his wife, Dorothy.