It takes me a long time to get with a landscape. It took me 20 years before I wrote anything about Ibiza, and I haven't written about Oregon yet, although I've been there 20 years - possibly I'm almost due.

I'm not too fond of the hard work and the constant battle with self-doubt that goes on when I write, but I figure that's part of the territory.

I do think that short story writing is often a matter of luck.

I sell well now in Russia. I remember one signing in Russia some years ago where the bookstore had two strongmen to hold the crowds back.

A lot of us don't want to be quite that serious about world problems. Our life is there to enjoy, not to be an eternal dissident, eternally unhappy with how things are and with the state of mankind.

Wherever you go in the galaxy, you can find a food business, a house-building business, a war business, a peace business, a governing business, and so forth. And, of course, a God business, which is called 'religion,' and which is a particularly reprehensible line of endeavor.

I'm not so interested any more in how a great deal of science fiction goes. It goes into things like Star Wars and Star Trek which all go excellent in their own way.