I Couldn't Tell If I Was Perspicacious

Everything Has Changed. I Cannot Be Used Anymore. Those Days Are Over. I Know Too Much. What I Do Now, I Do For Me.

Geeks Run The World. Condoleezza Rice Is A Geek, Bill Gates Is Clearly A Geek, Many Of The Big Filmmakers And Writers Are Geeks, Lots Of Military People Are Geeks. Anyone Who Has Heard Donald Rumsfeld Talk About Military Hardware Knows They Are In The Presence Of A Geek.

I Always Felt Sorry For The Sidekick As A Kid. They Never Got Their Due And It Left A Very Bad Taste In The Mouth - They Are Defined By A Subordinate Relationship To Someone Else. I Always Felt Like A Bit Of Sidekick When I Was A Kid And It Didn't Feel Fair.

When I'm Writing A Book, Generally I Start With The Mood And Setting, Along With A Couple Of Specific Images—things That Have Come Into My Head, Totally Abstracted From Any Narrative, That I've Fixated On. After That, I Construct A World, Or An Area, Into Which That General Setting, That Atmosphere, And The Specific Images I've Focused On Can Fit.

In Every Book I Write, I Try To Name-check The Most Prominent Influences, Or The Most Prominent Conscious Influences.