Will you be touring or doing any signings on the east coast any time soon?

At present, outside of appearances at LTUE, Worldcon in Spokane, and World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., I have no tours or signings set up for the year. Part of this is a reflection on the state of the publishing world, where revenues and profits took a severe hit at most publishers, since most of my tours have been paid for or at least partly supported by my publisher. Another reason is that I’m frankly still trying to catch up from the delays created by a conglomeration of events in my life [none of them relating to my health or ability to write] which greatly reduced the time available for me to write during 2014. In another six months, well, then we’ll see.

When will we see another Recluce book? Will you consider writing one about druids of Naclos?

At present, I’m working on another Imager Portfolio book, and since I’m only about halfway through it, I frankly haven’t given much thought to what I’m going to write next. At least some readers will be pleased to know that my esteemed editor would very much like me to continue writing Recluce books… and, if possible, I try to avoid displeasing my editor too often, but exactly what any forthcoming Recluce book might be remains to be seen. At least for now.

Tantor Media has only announced the publication of the first two books of the Corean Chronicles in audiobook format. When are the others scheduled for release?

As a matter of fact, Tantor has only bought the rights to those two. Whether the remaining six books of the Corean Chronicles appear in audiobook format depends on how well the firast two books — Legacies and Darknesses — sell in audiobook format. So if you want all the Corean Chronicles in audio format, go out and buy the first two.

Do you ever draw characters from real life and just give them different names?

There’s only one character — and a very minor one at that — that was taken pretty much whole from “real life” (and no, I’m not about to say which character). I do take patterns of behavior, mannerisms, speech patterns, and physical features from individuals, but they’re recombined in different ways. And I’m more than certain that I’ve borrowed and/or stolen more than I realize from life and people I’ve met without even consciously being aware of doing so.

Why isn’t Scion of Cyador available in ebook form in Great Britain?

Scion of Cyador isn’t available there because of the complexity of subsidiary/foreign book rights. Orbit, a division of Little Brown, purchased the British print rights to the book more than a decade ago,but did not purchase electronic rights. Although the book does not appear to be in active print in Britain, as I understand it, the print rights preclude “other editions” being published. Because Scion of Cyador is not in active print, Tor/Macmillan is in the process of reverting the rights, at which time an ebook edition will be available in Britain.

Do you have any idea how long you will continue writing books in the Recluce Saga?

The short answer is, “No, I don’t.”  The longer and likely more accurate answer is that I’ll continue writing so long as I have stories to tell that I feel also add something new and different to the world of Recluce and/or to readers’ perceptions of that world.  “New  and different” has a range of meaning to readers, since some feel that every book should have a radically different plot, while I prefer to write stories about the struggle to succeed and to achieve meaning in life, and for the protagonist to achieve that meaning and success in a way that is realistic within the structure of the world I’ve created.  There are always high costs and obstacles to such success, but the degree of those costs and the difficulty of surmounting those obstacles isn’t always apparent to all readers, although I do try to give hints along those lines.

Do you think you will ever write a Recluce book that takes place after The Death of Chaos?

As I’ve said before, it’s highly unlikely that I’ll ever write a Recluce book that takes place after The Death of Chaos, but I am working on a story collection entitled Recluce Tales, and there are two stories which take place several years after The Death of Chaos. It will likely be at least a year or two before this is finished, since, outside of the three stories already published [which will be included], all the other stories are original and unpublished.

Is Recluce your favorite “universe”?  If not, which one is?

Although I’ve obviously written more books about characters in the world of Recluce than in any other setting, I honestly can’t say that any one setting is my favorite.  In a very real sense, my “favorite” universe is the one in which I’m writing, and at present, that’s our universe a hundred years from now. 

Do you see any other books following in the Haze or  Archform:Beauty story-lines?

Flash is effectively set in the same “future” as Archform:Beauty, but not with the same characters.  At present, I don’t have any plans to re-visit the time/locale of either Haze or Archform:Beauty, but, as I say so often that it must frustrate some readers, I do reserve the right to do so, if I get an idea/plot that fits that I’m personally excited about. 

How long will you continue to write books in the Recluce Saga?  Will you ever write a book about the arrival of colonists from the Rational Stars?

Obviously, with two Recluce books forthcoming, I haven’t yet decided against writing more Recluce books.  I have at least one more in mind, but that’s a longer term project, for reasons I won’t get into yet.  The rest of the answer is simply that so long as I can come up with good stories and so long as readers buy them and Tor is willing to publish them I’ll likely write Recluce books, but there are likely to be intervals between them because I’ll also be writing other books.

Although I’ve felt like the Assassin’s Apologist in most of your books, I’d like to know when you will write a political novel/autobiography in Exton Land concepts and based on your experience — despite your disclaimer of “boring jobs” involving tedious details.

Unless I change my mind, which I reserve the right to do, the political events/issues in my fiction are likely to be the closest published documents to any sort of political autobiography. It’s also just as unlikely that I’ll write an actual novel around Exton Land, who much prefers to remain a quoted background source, rather than a beleaguered protagonist/antagonist. As I discovered with The Green Progression, fiction that’s truly close to reality doesn’t sell that well, at least for me, and most “political” fiction that sells well these days usually bears little resemblance to what has happened or is likely to — and that’s even more so now than a generation ago.

“Why don’t you have more signings on the East Coast?” That’s a question I’m asked often, and the answer is:

First, it’s very expensive for a publisher to send authors from the west to the east coast, and, second, for some reason, most bookstores and chains in large eastern cities aren’t terribly interested in having signings unless they can sell hundreds, if not thousands of copies. HOWEVER, Tor has arranged a signing at Singularity & Co in Brooklyn next week [January 10th at 7:00 P.M.], because I’ll be accompanying my wife to a National Opera Association convention. But that’s the only appearance, and the details are in the news section of the website.