Right up till the 1980s, SF envisioned giant mainframe computers that ran everything remotely, that ingested huge amounts of information and regurgitated it in startling ways, and that behaved (or were programmed to behave) very much like human beings... Now we have 14-year-olds with more computing power on their desktops than existed in the entire world in 1960. But computers in fiction are still behaving in much the same way as they did in the Sixties. That's because in fiction [artificial intelligence] has to follow the laws of dramatic logic, just like human characters.

How long it takes to write a book depends on its length.

I'm in favor of any technology that makes my work available to the reading public at a reasonable price.

Being a writer was never a choice, it was an irresistible compulsion.

If you can find collaborators whose strengths compliment your own, the result can be more than the sum of its authors.

I now have to find a reason to write, every single day.

I found college useful for a lot of other reasons. It exposed me to a great many influences I wouldn't otherwise have encountered, and gave me a lot of time with some very intelligent people whose thoughts are still with me.