Although Dave's parents have maintained that he read The Chronicles of Narnia when he was only four years old, he doesn't remember it, and the only evidence of their claim is his reverence for lions and tendency to get lost for decades of subjective time in wardrobes. Of his later youth little is known and less is spoken of, save for the diving watch incident that still makes his older brother crack up. Despite a love of reading and a family that placed great value on scholarship, his academic career was distinguished by mediocrity; the sheepskin he earned at Temple University should probably have an asterisk on it somewhere.

His Puritan work ethic saw him through years of hard labor in Philadelphia at thankless tasks, and the skills he acquired amaze supermarket cashiers and assistant produce managers even today. Belatedly heeding Horace Greeley's admonishment to "go west, young man," he drove his beater in the direction of the setting sun and fetched up at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with few prospects and fewer friends.

It was in Colorado that he found the love of his life and a career in publishing with "the most dangerous press in America," in reverse order. Over a decade later, he condensed the techniques of combat shooting, knife fighting, martial arts, and survival skills he'd learned first-hand into a book titled, "The Ultimate Guide to Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse." Lavishly illustrated by a baker's half-dozen of talented artists, it was written under the pseudonym F. Kim O'Neill and published by Paladin Press in 2010.

Eventually, the stories in his head needed to come out. Eschewing the more old-fashioned technique of trepanning, he instead went digital and began to write e-books. His first novel is titled "The Blessed Man and the Witch." The beginning of a trilogy about a Biblical apocalypse, it addresses western occultism, angelic phenomena, demonic possession, and the slow dissolution of American society within a credible framework.