If you had to sum up the series for people who hadn’t read it, what would you say?
(laughs) Well . . . Gosh, I’m going to quote my husband, who was asked this. He said, “Well, I’ve written over a million words, and now you’re asking me to summarize it in six words: Cultures clash. Worlds change. Cope.” That’s only five words, but he didn’t want to be wordy.
That’s good though. (laughs) That’s right up there with ‘baby shoes, never worn.’
Yeah, quite right. He did an amazing job of writing about real people in fantastic situations in which they had to make decisions on not enough information, and it might cost them their lives if they made the wrong decision. Well, when that is said, one would see that first responders—medical people, law enforcement people&mdashwere among the earliest group of identifiable fans. Fans in general range from geezers to 12-year-olds, both sexes.
I did meet a pretty big cross-section when I was at DragonCon this year.
The five-word summary of the series by RJ was given in an interview with Orbit in 2000.
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