If you've read the Mitch Mythic sci-fi novels, you will know that the protagonist of the stories comes from the town of Kingsford. He was playing hockey against the neighbouring town of Vanderton when he suffers an embarrassing accident caught on camera that quickly goes viral. From there it is a series of spiraling supernatural adventures.
It all started with Welcome To The Hive Mind, the first book, where readers met the supporting cast: Drak, a traveller from beyond the stars; Moon SoHee, a teenage girl with incredible scientific abilities; Robert Chapman, the enigmatic CEO of MindHIve.
They engage in inter-dimensional espionage, strange technologies, and psychological battles that carried on into book two, The Other Side Of Beyond, that was just released this spring into the earthly dimension.
Fans of the Mitch Mythic set will be excited to know a third book is already underway.
Local fans might also be interested to know that those niggling familiarities have some truth to them. Author Paul Ormond may have spent the past 10-plus years in South Korea, but he disclosed to The Citizen that he was born and raised in Prince George and the books are tattooed with his upbringing.
"The backdrop of the entire story is Prince George as I remember it," Ormond said.
"The first chapter takes place in the old Coliseum downtown. And a lot of scenes take place in and around College Heights where I grew up, with the big finale happening in what would be the exhibition grounds."
Ormond was the son of teachers and he attended College Heights Elementary and then graduated in 1997 from College Heights Secondary. He was a sporty kid, and was also a passionate reader. His family travelled a lot to see the sights, attractions and natural endowments of the region.
"I didn't really appreciate my upbringing in Prince George until I began to miss it," said Ormond, who moved away to attend the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (the Cinema Television Stage and Radio Program) and then graduated in 2005 from the University of Calgary. He came back to become a camera operator for CKPG-TV, but had a restlessness that drew him to international travel, and teaching English in South Korea took him across the Pacific where he has lived ever since.
"I think a lot of kids who grew up (in Prince George), myself included, feel like it's a dumpy old logging town and that all the good stuff is happening elsewhere," he said, thinking back to the mentality of his youth. "But it's not until you go away that you realize just how good you had it. It really is a town with a lot going for it. Easy access to the outdoors and plenty of different pastimes to pursue. Lots of different activities for kids to get involved in and a great small-town vibe."
In South Korea, he met a woman who became his wife and they went into business together running English lessons and other tutoring out of their home. They have two small children.
On the side, Ormond was also an enthusiast of board games. He has a large collection, uses them as teaching aids in his English lessons, and was developing original ones as well.
It was that that led to the novels.
He was a hungry reader ever since he was a child. His school library's biggest tome was a huge compendium of the stars and planets, and he used to turn those pages in fascination.
When he was about 15 he read the Jack Kerouac modern classic On The Road and that was a breakthrough for him. It was a novel in name, but in fact was a breakneck autobiographic travelogue - raw, rebellious and unfiltered.
It got Ormond journalling and into the habit of writing. As he was developing characters for one of the games he was designing, he became particularly interested in one.
As he picked away at backstory and colour, it tumbled to Ormond that this was no game character, it was a literary character. Mitch Mythic was conceived.
"Without anything standing in my way, I jumped into this story and didn't look back," he said. "Writing a novel is a challenge and a half. But there are well worn pathways to success - the number one thing being consistent effort. If you write a little bit everyday, after a short time you've got a decent first draft. I found myself really enjoying the process. It felt like all of the past restraints were thrown off and I was finally in my element.
"I tried a lot of different writing projects over the years and they all fizzled out some way or another," he added. "But I look back now at all of the things I've tried and realize that there is no such thing as failure, it's all just practice. Just keep trying until you get it right."
Travelling on those long, ambitious family camping trips was definitely real-life inroads into the inter-dimensional travelling done in his stories. His childhood and his own personality are impossibly intertwined in the fiction in the same way, if not as overtly, as Kerouac's creative fictionalizations of actual life.
"Having lived in Asia for a decade I have really begun to appreciate all of the things I was able to experience as a kid," he said. "White Christmases and camping in the great outdoors, these are things people in Korea could really only dream of. So when it came time for me to choose a setting for my story, there was no question I was going to set it in Prince George. It certainly is the old adage, you've got to write what you know."
His family has moved away from Prince George, so it has been many years since he's been back. He still has many friends here, though, and a hometown visit is still on his wish list. There's another reason, too. He has fond and vivid memories of the Bob Harkins Branch of the Prince George Public Library. He knows his books have been submitted for inclusion in their stacks. It would be a thrill, he said, to walk those aisles once again and find his own work tucked on those beloved shelves.
"There is so much about Prince George that defined me as a person," he said. "I'm well aware that I had a privileged upbringing and I am lucky to have had a family that could go and do those things (reading, sports, travel, etc.), but I don't think I would be the person I am now if I didn't grow up in Prince George."
