It started 25 years ago, when I was teaching elementary school in a small town in Missouri

But I think, and hope, that the novels can be understood and enjoyed as science fiction, on their own terms.

Evolution brings human beings. Human beings, through a long and painful process, bring humanity.

The pack of media brayed and bellowed outside the house for seven weeks. Sol realized then what he had known and forgotten about very small communities: they were frequently annoying, always parochial, sometimes prying on a one-to-one level, but never had they subscribed to the vicious legacy of the so-called "public's right to know".

The young remember most deeply.... When we are old and failing, it is the memories of childhood which can be summoned most clearly.

This is every writer's nightmare - the sudden breakdown of meaning in the language that sustains and supports us.

There's a unique bond of trust between readers and authors that I don't believe exists in any other art form; as a reader, I trust a novelist to give me his or her best effort, however flawed.