Brian Hanson Appleton was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1950. He spent his childhood in Greece, Italy and France and worked in Iran for 5 years in the 1970's. He wrote his first non fiction book in 2007 about his experiences in Iran starting in the summer of 1966 when he was 16 when he went there alone for a vacation and fell in love with the people and the culture. He was taken hostage during the revolution of 1979 and liberated by a brave aristocratic Iranian woman friend who had hired two gunmen. He revisited Iran in 2008 after an absence of 32 years and although his liberator had passed away he looked up her daughter and grandson. His first book is entitled Tales from the Zirzameen, which has many connotations as it literarily means Underground in Persian which in a traditional home was the living room or salon cooler in summer and warmer in winter as well as having the connotation of counter cultural. He has written numerous articles about Iran and interviews of Iranian American personalities for Iranian Times, Persian Heritage Magazine, Payvand News, Payam Javan and Zan Magazine as well as stories about Italy for Hack Writers.com, MyLifeinItaly.com, Bitch Magazine and Al Jazeera English addition and his poetry appeared in Borders and in the collective Love and Pomegranates. In the early 1970's he was a fine artist for 3 years in Siena, Italy putting on three one man shows in the former Enoteca of the Medici Fortress there as well as the discotec If 2000 as well as several collectives in various towns in Tuscany such as Chianciano Terme. He has written four volumes of poetry, the first entitled 1000 Years at the Bottom of a Well and the latest one Another Season in Hell, a tribute to Rimbaud. He also wrote the biography of an Iranian Assyrian Christian minority family for five generations from Western Azerbaijan entitled Shamshone; Sun of Assyria as well as a book illustrated by the author called Greek Goddesses for Girls with 68 color illustrations and a companion coloring book for younger girls. His latest book is his first venture into fiction called Immorality and Immortality about a man who begins to remember his past lives eventually discovering that he is the mortal incarnation of Apollo who has developed a conscience unlike his former immortal self and tries to make amends with former lovers and his 28 children as well as relocating his father Zeus who has taken on the personality of Sam Raimi and lives on Mount Olympus in Hollywood and has tasked himself with keeping ancient Greek religion and culture alive with TV series like Hercules, The Legendary Journeys about his son. It takes place in ancient and modern Greece, Paris, London, Manhattan of the 1980's, Westport, CT and LA. The Genres are Fantasy, Paranormal and time travel. There are many revelations uncovered in this book like the contribution of Greek emigres from former Constantinople conquered by the Ottomans who went to Italy and became professors at various universities helping to generate the Italian Renaissance by translating Greek classics into Italian such as Homer. It also struggles with philosophical, moral and mystical questions that have been consistent with human existence throughout time and on a lighter note is a love story with humorous moments. Rather than ancient wars the protagonist struggled with in past lives in modern life he struggles with bureaucracy, school districts and law suits while the romantic and family struggles are timeless.

Appleton has a BA in Anthropology from George Washington University graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1972 and an MA in Ancient History from University of Fundamental Knowledge Oxford affiliate in St Petersburg, Russian Federation. His Master Thesis was on the Hellenistic influence on the Kandahar School of Buddhist Sculpture. He spent 6 years in Manhattan as a partner in an import export company in the 1980's bringing in marble and granite from Italy and exporting US lumber to Italy. He is a polyglot speaking English, Italian, French, Persian and Greek. He has been a manufacturers' representative and lighting designer for the past 40 years residing in Northern California since 1987. He was knighted into the Sovereign Orthodox Order of Saint John Hospitaller of Jerusalem in 2006. He is currently co authoring and editing an autobiography about the daughter of his liberator. Her mother and his liberator was schizophrenic and married 7 times. She came from an old aristocratic family from Esfahan whose gardens now public are famous landmarks. One of her uncles was married to the Shah's oldest sister Ashraf and the other was the Shah's secretary.

“A slow expansive tale that engagingly combines the everyday with the mythological.”
– Kirkus Reviews