- What was your inspiration for the Ido Chronicles? And for Plenum?
- Tell us about how you treat gender in Plenum, and other books in the series.
- And what about the jonahs? In your excerpt one features prominently. What are they and what is their importance to your story?
- You have an unusual way of dealing with time in your books. Tell us about tempo. Why is it there and what does it do?
- Your book explores both religious and spiritual themes. Do you see these as different, and how does your book address them?
- Although you describe an authoritarian culture in the Kinship, one senses there is a lot of respect there too. Tell us about this context.
- Plenum is the first of a planned series of fifteen books. How much do you plan ahead? Do you need to know the character’s whole story before you start writing?
- Discussion of the spiritual dimension is often missing from mainstream literature. Why did you feel it was important to explore this aspect of human experience?
- You propose several forms of technology that completely transform human life. Are there certain aspects of life that we take for granted that you see as open to change?
- An element that grows in importance as the novel goes on is the struggle of helping a friend suffering from depression. Do you think we can learn from sharing stories about this kind of difficult experience?
- A lot of modern science fiction deals with the near future. What is that draws you to situate your books in the far future?
- How does your training as an astrophysicist affect your writing in Plenum? In the Ido Chronicles as a whole?
- How do you deal with language in Plenum? You introduce a number of neologisms. Did you have a process for developing these?
- Plenum situates the unfolding action in historical terms. Tell us more about why you adopted this strategy for telling the story.
- You live and write in Quebec City, Canada, but you have published through an American publishing house. Are there issues that have arisen about this?