I was fascinated by The Lord of the Rings from about the age of eight and that lasted well into my teens.

It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea.

But boys will be boys, even the ones who are only girls dressed up: That's one of the rules of the world.

The one thing worse than an enemy is a friend turned false.

I still feel, as I did when I was six or seven, that books are simply the best way to experience a story.

That's the trouble with a story spinner. You never know what's real and what's made up. Even when they are telling the truth, they can't stop themselves from spinning it into something better; something prettier, with more of a pattern to it.

An Engineer is no match for a Historian with his dander up!