There is much to admire in Peter Brett's writing, and his concept is brilliant. There's action and suspense all the way.

We live out our lives as we are meant to live them-with some choice, with some chance, but mostly as a result of the persons we are.

Anyway, several rewrites later, Del Rey Books did publish my first novel, and it did become the first work of fiction on the New York Times trade paperback bestseller list.

I remember one winter, when I was about five or six, I spent three days with another boy, tracking a bobcat that had been sighted in another county fifty miles away, but which I was sure had come into our neighborhood.

If you are ever completely satisfied with something you have written, you are setting your sights too low. But if you can't let go of your material even after you have done the best that you can with it, you are setting your sights too high.

In bad weather, I spent hours drawing action figures on paper, coloring them, backing them on cardboard, then cutting them out and creating whole stories around their lives.

After all, you put a lot into creating a universe and everything that goes with it, and it seems a shame to use it only once.