The idea for this book came to me in 2003, when my first son was two years old and I was explaining to him the magic of Christmas.  “You’d better be good, or Santa won’t bring you any presents,” was the way I put it.  The spell worked, by the way: He was (and still is) a good boy. 

I wrote a short blog post about the incident, and in that post I said Santa’s capacity was low because he lost two toy factories when the ice under them gave way as a result of global warming.  What can I say, I have a warped outlook on many things.

I didn’t let go of the thought, though.  It evolved into the basic premise of THE MAN IN THE CINDER CLOUDS: a book telling the origins of Santa is found in an ice core.  My first thought was to write is as a screenplay, and include every Christmas cliché as a joke, similar to how the fairy tales made appearances in “Shrek” and the classic toys had their roles in “Toy Story.”  The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that writing it as a novel was the way to go.

As I wrote it, it evolved from a farce to a more realistic story, it took on more of a gritty-and-real edge, like “Batman Begins” but with Santa.  Not that it’s without warmth and humor, but there is action and peril, too.  The clichés are there, but not as jokes, they all play into the characters and stem from the story.

I think the end result is a very special story that is suitable for boys and girls young and old.  If you've ever believed in Santa, this is the book for you.