The Swords were still interesting but by then a cast of characters had started to appear and go on from book to book, and other things about the world began to feel constricting. And there were other things I wanted to do, so I closed the series up and stopped it.

There are interactions with characters within the game which I think are pretty neatly done considering the limitations that you have to work with. I mean, a computer can't really generate a character that talks back and forth with you successfully.

If people ask me for the ingredients of success, I say one is talent, two is stubbornness or determination, and third is sheer luck. You have to have two out of the three. Any two will probably do.

Research is of considerable importance in certain fields, such as science and history.

Actually ideas are everywhere. It's the paperwork, that is, sitting down and thinking them into a coherent story, trying to find just the right words, that can and usually does get to be labor.

More immediately, I'm currently working on another Dracula in which there will be connections with ancient Egypt. That's about as far as I want to go in commenting on current work.

And what we know, or think we know, about the universe of space and time is changing very quickly.

At this stage, my chief professional goal is simply to keep on writing and making a living at it.

I have some good stories yet to tell.

I started writing seriously about 1960, at the fairly advanced age of 30.

I wouldn't like to just do one story or one type of stories all the time.

I wrote speculative fiction because I loved to read it, and thought I could do better than some of the people who were getting published.

Mysteries I read for fun, so I will probably never write one, for fear of spoiling the fun.

Probably all the books I've ever written have been efforts to define the boundaries of humanity.

The Berserkers have been with me for about forty years, and we're not done yet.

The same tools that make any writer good, plus a cheerful willingness to suspend belief.

There's a big overlap with the people you meet at the fantasy and science fiction cons.

I don't know why a computer game can't be an art form just as a puppet show or an opera is. I'm still interested in computer games as something I would like to work on someday.

I doubt I'll ever do another book collaboration; I've been spoiled. Roger and I both happened to move to New Mexico at about the same time, when we each had a family of young kids to raise. Socializing seemed to lead naturally to working together.

I finally decided one day, reading science fiction magazines of the time, I could do at least as well as some of these people are doing. So I finally made a serious effort.