I have to do more close research and fact checking for the science fiction. This is not however to say that writing good fantasy does not involve doing good research.

All of this got me thinking about the history of the westward expansion, and got me to wondering how the exploration of the Solar System would be changed if there were an indigenous presence out there.

I think people enjoy a series. When you like a story, many readers want more of the same, which is dandy, if the author and the characters have more to say.

First and foremost, The Quiet Invasion is a first contact story. What would we do if we actually found evidence of alien life out there? It's also about politics.

I'm mostly a novelist these days, but I have written short stories in Fantasy, Science Fiction and horror.

Becoming a mother cannot help but change things. An author's life is reflected in their writing, whether they want it to be or not, and parenthood is one of the biggest life changes there is.

Now, Venus is an extremely hostile environment, and as such presents a lot of challenges for a science fiction author who wants to create life there. However, as I began to research it more thoroughly, I found myself intrigued by the possibilities the world offers.

Fantasy is, of course, booming, and I think it's beginning to stretch its range as well.

When I was in college, I spent a summer working in London. I'd enjoyed tea before that, but then I got actual, really good tea there and never looked back.

So, one of the things I was doing with the aliens in The Quiet Invasion was creating that advanced society which had ideas about morality and proper use of natural resources that were radically different from ours, as the Europeans were from the American Indians.

My joking answer to this question is that I leave a bowl of milk out on the back porch every night for the Idea Fairy. In the morning, the milk is gone and there's a brand-new shiny idea by the bowl.

The Lord of the Rings movie set an entirely new standard for fantasy in the movies.

I describe my plots as follows; A character is walking down the street when all of a sudden a piano falls on them. They spend the rest of the story digging out from under that piano. How they dig, how long and how well, this all depends entirely on the character.

Octavia Butler, of course, is brilliant and disturbing.

I did not want to write a story about the invasion of Earth, so I had to create a race capable of living nearby, which meant to either on the Moon, on Mars, or on Venus. I picked Venus.

Fortunately, many people also enjoy a stand-alone as a sample of something new, like trying the special at a favourite restaurant one night instead of going for the usual.

I have a better internal and intuitive understanding of folklore and myth than science and technology, so in that way fantasy is easier.

I myself was born in Sacramento, California in 1966.

Then, I realized that there is an indigenous presence in the Solar System. It's us. So, then, I got to wondering what would happen if a more technologically advanced society moved next door to us, the way we moved next door to the American Indians.

Actually, after while, finding the ideas is the easy part. Sorting them through and turning them into stories, now, that's the hard work.

When I'm not at the keyboard, I'm generally reading, practicing tai chi or middle eastern dance, or cooking.

I suppose if I was to have to pick a few, Ursula LeGuin would have to top the list. It was while reading her work that I decided I wanted to be an author.

If I get blocked, it is generally because I don't know enough about some aspect of the story or the characters. The answer for this is generally more research, or making more background notes, so the place and person can be more fully realized inside my own mind.

I graduated from the University of Michigan with a BA in Communications and left formal education behind.

Now, of course, the great thing about the solar system as a frontier is that there are no Indians, so you can have all the glory of the myth of the American westward expansion without any of the guilt.

I feel SF is going through an experimental phase right now.

I have to do more close research and fact checking for the science fiction. This is not however to say that writing good fantasy does not involve doing good research.

At the end, the realization is that she had to get to a place in her life where she could drop her guard and make peace with the fact that whether she had a small amount of time, that she had to kind of live it completely through, instead of living by the rules.

President Johnson and I have a lot in common. We were both born in small towns and we're both fortunate in the fact that we think we married above ourselves.

The fact is I've been in Massachusetts for the last two weeks, and it seems over the last few days that the price is increasing by the hour at the pump, so there needs to be an aggressive investigation.

In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason.

Working-class Americans have waited too long, close to a decade in fact, for an increase in the minimum wage. This has been the second longest period without a pay raise since the Federal minimum wage law was first enacted in 1938.

The fact is, Latinos now own their own lives and I believe they can afford to look back without judgment.

The fact that it's science fiction gives you the license to do anything you want to do.

It has to do with the fact that Ford, for all his greatness, is an Irish egomaniac, as anyone who knows him will say.

I never knew a more presumptuous person than myself. The fact that I say that shows that what I say is true.

I think the fact that I'm so well known to be gay makes it very difficult to have a convincing relationship with a woman on screen. It wouldn't be at all difficult for me to kiss a woman - I'll kiss a frog if you like.

People expect us to be different, but we're not. We're very similar people, and it's because we're so similar and close to each other that we make each other laugh - in fact we make each other laugh more than we make anyone else laugh.

I can't tell you how hard I worked the last year. In fact, I worked so hard that I know I can't maintain that same work level in 2001, so I've got to quit something.

The miracle of light pours over the green and brown expanse of saw grass and of water, shining and slowly moving, the grass and water that is the meaning and the central fact of the Everglades. It is a river of grass.

The key to accepting responsibility for your life is to accept the fact that your choices, every one of them, are leading you inexorably to either success or failure, however you define those terms.

In fact I have nightmares about having children. I want to carry a baby and feel the life within me and in my dream, I do. But every time after it's born, there's this incredible fear, this pounding pulse of fear. It's a real bad nightmare.

All my songs were solo voices. Just me singing. In fact, that was the gimmick - no gimmick. Just singing straight with not too much background.

The fact is that young people are going to have sex whether you like it or not.

We have stabilized our economy. We took over a very sick economy, and we were hemorrhaging 750,000 jobs a month. We have stopped the hemorrhaging. In fact, we had 140,000 job growth last month. And that's what I call progress.

As a matter of fact they'd blacken us down. I guess there's a reason that according to what the Caucasian wanted us to look like. He wanted us to look-if we were Black, then he had his idea of what we look like.

I felt pretty comfortable with Westerns, apart from the fact I couldn't ride.

There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the later ignorance.

Every day some new fact comes to light - some new obstacle which threatens the gravest obstruction. I suppose this is the reason which makes the game so well worth playing.