I have always admired the work of Phil Farmer and was glad for the chance to work with him. Readers today may be too young to remember his classics like The Lovers.

At the time I wrote Xone I had never been on the Internet.

Happy children do not seem to grow up to be writers.

If the fiercest conglomerate monsters had souls, with all that implied, who could condemn them as evil?

As for collaboration - I have done a lot, 26 books, and found publishers increasingly resistive to them. It's not that the books are bad; editors won't even read them.

It would be easier to write a novel without reader input, but I feel the fiction is richer for it.

But I don't read or listen for pleasure. I have too much else to do.