David L. Laing spent over fifteen years in Brazil writing, painting and composing music. Solar Codex: A Light Odyssey and Notes From the Milky Way are the first two volumes in the quartet of Cosmic Adventure Novels. He has collections of his paintings in South America, the United States and Europe.

Mr. Laing expatriated in his early twenties and headed for South America with no money, in hopes of finding or founding a “New Paris for artists.” Already proficient at “hopping freight cars” he made it successfully to New Orleans and then on to Florida. There, he caught the last remaining plane in Air Condor’s former fleet of three. The others apparently had gotten lost in the fog-rimmed mountains. Two months later and 30 pounds lighter he limped into Sao Paulo, Brazil having traversed the entire continent overland, nearly ten thousand miles, surviving purely on his own wits and a few helpful souls.