Ralph Askew was born in 1937 in Cleveland, Ohio. He spent a total of 10 years in the Ohio National Guard, the California National Guard and the United States Marine Corps where he developed an interest in military history. After graduating from UCLA, he joined the LAPD where he spent most of his patrol time at the Newton Street Patrol Division as a training officer. He retired from the police department after 21 years.  He is the author of Battleslave.   

According to the book description of Battleslave, “Chrisinda Balderack, a battledroid, was artificially produced in a laboratory solely for the purpose of fighting wars for the Galaxy. The production of battledroids meant that planets associated with the Galaxy did not have to provide the Galaxy with their own men to be killed in a far off war.  Very few battleroids ever returned home.  Many of the missions the battledroids were sent on were without support.  They were trained to kill their wounded to prevent them from falling into enemy hand, and revealing the objective of the mission or slowing down its completion.  Battledroids were trained to have no feelings.  After meeting a young girl her own age, Chrisinda develops emotions and feeling for her own fellow battledroids and finds that she cannot bring herself to kill her fellow wounded.”