I'm just worried that the technology I invented in that story ["The Pyramid and the Ass" ] will become real, and George W. Bush will be able to clone into a new body and be "re-elected" due to a clone-bill passed by him and his cronies. God forbid!

I realize that I've had a very idyllic vision of what spirituality looks like. Honestly, most of Western culture has an idyllic and simplified idea of what enlightenment entails.

[George W.] Bush's presidency was one of the great nightmares of my life to date.

I was really interested in this ability for others to create virtual memories for us. In "The Cartographers" I explore this through Adam Woods, and the company he works for, which produces virtual memories that people can beam into their consciousness. While the technology is sci-fi, the story is also a metaphor for the way love relationships create memories in our minds.

I think the challenge for humans remains the same as it has always been: to learn the skills of kindness, compassion, and love. Without these sacred skills, all technology can do is grow the shadows in our lives.

The problems we have with our current technology often reveal our own human foibles, and it's these new emotions of cyberspace which reveal our struggles.

However, in my fiction, I want to give an even further warning of where we're heading. And so, in "Heartland," you have people selling off their topsoil, and an underwater oil spill that has lasted over three-hundred days.