Back in the pre-internet age there were pirate publishers, especially in the third world, who would print physical copies of books, sell them, and never inform the author/their agent/their publisher just trousering the money. I think we can agree that this was piracy?

I'm an individual. I do not want to get into a pissing match with an organization that is a de-facto gigadollar-turnover multinational!

Any civilization where the main symbol of religious veneration is a tool of execution is a bad place to have children.

I don't do football. (Grew up in Leeds in the 1970s. Football there was indellibly associated with the National Front, i.e. violent fascist skinheads.)

For someone who is starting out on developing their critical skills, just being aware of its existence is great: it can make the difference between trying to write a story around a cliche or an original idea, and better still, studying it can eventually clue you in on how to breathe new life into tired tropes.

One ape's hallucination is another ape's religious experience - it just depends on which one’s god module is overactive at the time.

If I write too much of anything for too long, I burn out on it. So it helps to vary my output from year to year.