Human spirit is the ability to face the uncertainty of the future with curiosity and optimism. It is the belief that problems can be solved, differences resolved. It is a type of confidence. And it is fragile. It can be blackened by fear, and superstition. By the year 2050, when the conflict began, the world had fallen upon fearful, superstitious times.

Are you saying a society wracked by plague is preferable to one wracked by indifference?

I just love the idea that people disappear into the story for a while. You grab a book, and you want to get back to it, and your life becomes a bit of an interruption. I would love readers to feel like that.

Our world is limited by the machinery we carry. Its very different to the 18th and 19th century Enlightenment scientists who were mostly men of God and thought it was their quest to uncover Gods great plan.

Superstition is the need to view the world in terms of simple cause and effect.

I try not to be surprised. Surprise is the public face of a mind that has been closed.

The only thing binding individuals together is ideas. Ideas mutate and spread; they change their hosts as much as their hosts change them.