A: Not everybody can be center stage front at the same time.

A: Bits and pieces sometimes. Not the characters, but the nations are sometimes based on bits and pieces of actual cultures and quite often it has nothing to do with any culture that I am aware of consciously.

A: I see myself as whoever I happen to be writing at the moment. Other people have notions they think I'm this character or that. I'm everybody.

A: The characters never surprise me. In terms of the book I am God. A writer who says that the characters take control is doing one of two things either he or she is telling people what they want to hear because a lot of people seem to want to hear that the characters have taken over or else, that writer is being exceedingly lazy and not paying attention. The characters NEVER really take over.

A: If you mean The Guide, it will be one artist all the way through, a man named Todd Hamilton.

A: No, I just wish I could stop there from being any typos.

A: The name comes out of Hindu mythology, where there is a belief that time is a wheel. Many older cultures believe that time is cyclic, that it repeats. In fact, I believe the best thing the ancient Greeks gave us was (the idea) that time was linear and change was possible.

A: Read And Find Out. That is a common answer for me, by the way!

A: I don't know why people have a hard time figuring that out. To me it seems intuitively obvious even to the most casual observer. The reason I won't tell people though is that I am enjoying watching them squirm entirely too much. It's probably bad for me.

A: I don't want to answer this as it could be a spoiler for those who have not read far enough.

A: Read And Find Out. Don't you love it, guys?

A: There are a number of influences from the Bible, but from other sources as well. My work is not overtly religious in any way.

A: Mashadar killed Sammael. Sammael is toast!

A: Because it takes that long to write it. The earlier books also took a long time, but what was happening there was that the usual space between handing in the manuscript and the book being published, was shrinking in my case. Normally that is nine months to a year. For my last four books, however it has been two months from me handing in the manuscript to me being on tour.

A: Read And Find Out! They're coming.

A: That is not something I intend to explore.

A: Fantasy is an area where it is possible to talk about right and wrong, good and evil, with a straight face. In mainstream fiction and even in a good deal of mystery, these things are presented as simply two sides of the same coin. Never really more than a matter of where you happen to be standing. I think quite often it's hard to tell the difference. I think that quite often you can only find a choice between bad and worse. But I think it's worth making the effort and I like to expose my characters to that sort of situation.

A: This is my answer: You got that one right, sport!

A: I'm not certain that I draw from any one culture more than others. Many myths and legends of many different cultures are really the same story when you get to the heart of it. They are often cultural cautionary tales about how we should behave and how we should live.

A: They were in the original plot line.