While writing a novel I almost completely stop reading books in the same sub-genre for the duration.

I'm a fuzzy-headed warm-hearted liberal, and I think fuzzy-headed warm-hearted liberalism is an ideological stance that needs defending-if necessary, with a hob-nailed boot-kick to the bollocks of budding totalitarianism.

The Magician's Land is a triumphant climax to the best fantasy trilogy of the decade.

Any replacement to the current copyright position (life plus 70 years) needs to have an answer lined up for this, and similar, messy edge cases.

We're currently living with a generation of established novelists who are embarrassingly out of date with respect to social networking, internet skills, and so on.

Most established novelists are writing books informed by experiences gained in their youth. Middle age is not the best time to be changing smartphones every six months or adopting new technology platforms - because we tend to get slower and less accommodating to change as we age.

It's usually quite easy to shrug and write something else instead.