Phillip Tucker is the author of the popular the path to betrayal series along with many other action thrillers and science fiction novels. Born in Sydney, Phillip resides, with his wife in the Byron Bay hinterland of Australia. When not writing you will find Phillip spending time with his children and grandchildren, watching movies, reading books, playing video games or attending further education on literature and script writing.
Phillip was born in Sydney; there wasn’t a large star in the sky and definitely no shepherds. He lived most of his life in a small southern suburb of Sydney, called Woronora River. Had a great Mum and Dad plus three patient sisters, and a long line of pets. Phillip attended the Woronora River Public School, before moving on to Jannali Boys High School. He didn’t really enjoy his school years, though now Phillip wished he’d spent more time paying attention in English class, rather than fooling around. He enjoyed sports especially surfing, but his secret loves are sailing and reading.
At the age of 15 on a bus trip to Queensland, an old lady seeing Phillip was bored, gave him a copy of ‘The Day of the Triffids’ to read. He has become hooked on reading ever since. Phillip left High School at 16 to start working with his father in the security industry. He caught his first burglar at the age of 18; we still don’t know who was the most afraid! Phillip also met the love of his life Michelle at 19 and married her at 22.
Feeling patriotic, Phillip then joined the army reserve, spending a few years learning to dig holes around Australia, and living in them. Phillip said there was a big difference between regular forces and reserves.
1. “They were far better soldiers”,
2. “They could drink you under the table”,
3. “We weren’t stupid enough to join up full time – Only joking! They were some of the best years of my life!”
The reserves forces though good, were no match for the regular units in both training and drinking both of which he found out first hand. There was always a friendly rivalry between the reserves and the ‘regs’, but as one sergeant from 3 RAR told him, better to depend on half-trained men than men with no training at all. They were some of the best times of his life.
Phillip then purchased and operated his father’s business having two beautiful girls along the way. After many years he and his wife became tired of the city life and moved to Northern New South Wales where they planted out a piece of land growing Macadamia Nuts. Many years later, getting itchy feet, Philip sold the farm and travelled around the world, just doing nothing for three years.
Books, especially fiction and science fiction have always had a hold on Phillip. He has no idea how many he has read, but at one church garage sale, his wife made him get rid of over three hundred novels collected since moving north, even now he has still got heaps. What made him write? On his 50th birthday, Phillip was given a fiction novel to read, it had sold over three million copies, but was bloody awful. After complaining about the book, his wife told him “to stop whining and write one yourself if you’re so clever”. So after three years of driving everyone crazy, in 2008, he had published his first novel!
One of Phillip’s favourite sayings is: ‘Everyone has a book in them, you just have to find what yours is’.