Career
Temple’s first novels were The Explorer (1975; UK 1976) and Stations (1979), both strong realist chronicles of early settlement.
His most significant fictions, however, are his two-part anthropomorphic saga of the mountain kea, Beak of the Moon (1981) and Dark of the Moon (1993). These cautionary environmental allegories adapt an English sub-genre (from Wind in the Willows to Watership Down) into a distinctive local version evincing the author’s profound knowledge of the New Zealand mountain locale. He added Sam in 1984, and two further novels have been completed in draft.
the author of more than 30 fiction, non-fiction and children's titles
Two expedition narratives were followed by two notable books on New Zealand mountaineers, The World at Their Feet, which won the Wattie Book Award for 1970, and Castles in the Air (1973).