List was born in Wellington to a professional family whose name was originally Liszt but grew up in Rotorua.
In 2000, nine of his poems were printed in the Alsop Review, an online poetry magazine in the United States.
In 1979, List and his family migrated to Australia, where he became head of market research for the ABC, operating out of Adelaide.
He was made head of the market research department at the University of Adelaide, having already established an international reputation in Futures Studies.
His first comic fantasy novel The Return of the Triboldies was published serially in the Victoria University student newspaper Salient in 1968 and reprinted in 1996.