About the Book
This extraordinary new book by the British author, John Joss, will amaze, entertain and educate readers of all ages. Its 300 pages contain fifty remarkable 'incidents, ' each a riveting story in itself. INCIDENTS is a sweeping biographical chronicle of a venturesome, joyful and successful life. It moves, with never a dull page, from amusing and poignant childhood anecdotes to risking his life- flying military aircraft and gliders, racing on two and four wheels, and sailing the oceans. The breadth and depth of experience and the sheer audacity of this multi-faceted and enterprising man would be hard to equal by many men, combined. John Joss entered the Royal Navy in England at 16, took initial pilot training, but was near-fatally injured in a motorcycle accident while returning to his ship. Invalided from the Service, he went to work, writing initially for a motorcycle magazine, then for industry. He emigrated to America, working first for corporations, then freelance, writing about business, technology and military aviation and participating in the world technology business center, Silicon Valley. He has raced cars, motorcycles, dinghies and yachts, trodden London's West End stages, explored Mexico, worked in the Gulf of Mexico oil patch, flown the Space Shuttle Simulator, evaded a Soviet military spy in Washington, helped find the sunken nuclear submarine Thresher, flown with the Blue Angels, the Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force and written business plans for Silicon Valley startups. He became the first journalist-pilot to fly and write about the U-2 spy plane, dodged a minefield at Fort Irwin, California, wrote for major media, did radio commercials and documentary voice-overs, soared gliders in the Sierra Nevada, created a high-tech series for network radio, commentated at car and motorcycle racetracks, sailed around the world, penned twenty novels, nonfiction books, screenplays and plays, and fathered three daughters. Not boring. Just as he wished.
About the Author: John Joss has been writing for 30+ years. After serving in the Royal Navy, he started writing in London for a conglomerate and a motorsports magazine. He emigrated to Texas: oilfield engineer in the Gulf of Mexico, then technical/promotional writer for a major conglomerate. He moved to San Francisco as advertising/promotion writer for Silicon Valley pioneers Ampex, Fairchild, Hewlett-Packard and Varian Associates before starting his freelance career, working worldwide. He has created product 'launches' for high-tech companies, written websites/ads/collateral for agencies and clients, written/directed editorial and marketing videos (including voice-overs), written speeches for F100 corporations, created winning business/technical proposals worth >$10B for clients worldwide, primarily in computing and land development, and devised a business-plan format for Silicon Valley technology startups. He was the first photojournalist to fly, photograph and write about the U-2 'spy plane' and the Space Shuttle simulator. He writes for major media and is m/c-commentator at motorsports events. His commentaries/VO have been broadcast on PBS-TV, BBC-TV and network radio (CBS). His publishing companies-The Soaring Press and The Practical Press-sold 70,000 copies of 10 books in 35 countries worldwide. His own book writing includes fiction (SierraSierra, Morrow, New York) and A Full Accounting (with Viktor Belenko), a fact-based novel about the Vietnam War POW/MIA conundrum, and nonfiction (Strike, Ballantine, New York) among his 20 novels and non-fiction books. He has written widely on subjects ranging from high technology and military aviation to human behavior and poetry.