My Job Is Not To Try To

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

Old Stories Would Tell How Weavers Would Kill Each Other Over Aesthetic Disagreements, Such As Whether It Was Prettier To Destroy An Army Of A Thousand Men Or To Leave It Be, Or Whether A Particular Dandelion Should Or Should Not Be Plucked. For A Weaver, To Think Was To Think Aesthetically. To Act - To Weave - Was To Bring About More Pleasing Patterns. They Did Not Eat Physical Food: They Seemed To Subsist On The Appreciation Of Beauty.

Anything For Gold And Experience.

I Don't Like Allegory.

Ever Since I Was Two, I've Loved Octopuses, Monsters, Abandoned Buildings.