What it boils down to is that parenting a child with autism is a difficult job; writing about it is far easier.

People are people, messy and mutable, combining differently with one another from day to day - even hour to hour.

There are relatively few science fiction or fantasy books with the main character being an old person.

There is simple ignorance, not knowing, and willful ignorance that refuses to know, that covers the light of knowledge with the dark blanket of bias.

My personal feeling about science fiction is that it's always in some way connected to the real world, to our everyday world.

But in fantasy, you can make a complete break, and you can put people in a situation where they are confronted with things that they would not confront in the real world.

Other people, including me, have written books with main characters who were old and rich. Or old and brilliant. Old sages, old wizards, old rich people.