S. P. Somtow (a rearrangement of his real name Somtow Papinian Sucharitkul; ; ; born 30 December 1952) is a Thai-American musical composer. He is also a science fiction, fantasy, and horror author writing in English. Somtow has both Thai and American citizenship. Youth A descendant of the Royal Chakri dynasty (his grandfather's sister was a cousin and consort of King Vajiravudh), Somtow was born in Bangkok. He moved to England with his parents in 1953 at the age of six months. English was his first language. Somtow was educated at Eton College and at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. He returned to Thailand in the early-1960s for a five-year period, during which he became fluent in the Thai language. At age 11, he wrote a poem called "Kith of Infinity", which was published in the English-language Bangkok Post. Shirley MacLaine saw it, and thinking that it was written by a dead poet, included it in her autobiography, Don’t Fall Off the Mountain. The poem contains the line "I am not a man", as Somtow was not yet an adult. It is thought that this prompted MacLaine to assume that the author was a woman. Science fiction As a science fiction writer, Somtow is known for several series, among which are the Mallworld, Inquestor, and Aquila series. He first was published as Somtow Sucharitkul in the late-1970s in Asimov’s and Analog science fiction magazines. He wrote several stories and novels under that name before changing his pen name to S. P. Somtow. Horror He wrote Vampire Junction and a series of related novels and stories. He was president of the Horror Writers Association from 1998 to 2000. His other horror books include the werewolf-Western novel Moon Dance, the zombie-American Civil War novel Darker Angels, and the collections Tagging the Moon: Fairy Tales of L.A. and The Pavilion of Frozen Women. In 1997, he wrote the juvenile vampire novel, The Vampire's Beautiful Daughter. He also wrote and directed the cult horror film The Laughing Dead and co-wrote the Roger Corman-produced Bram Stoker's Burial of the Rats (1995). Other literary works Somtow's novel, Jasmine Nights, a semi-autobiographical novel set in Thailand in the 1960s, has become his best known fictional work. The historical fantasy The Shattered Horse holds that Hector's son Astyanax survives the fall of Troy and grows to adulthood to meet many of the characters of the Iliad. Symphonic works He