When I finished the novel proper I decided that it would be interesting to write stories that addressed some of the consequences of the universe I built, in part because as I was writing the novel I was thinking about them, but realized there was no good place to put them in the novel itself. Also, as a "meta" thing I…

The serious, no-bullshit answer? Because I thought it would be fun.

I agree entirely and think you should bug every film producer you know. Tell them I respond especially well to large piles of money.

Well, you know, yes to both. I wanted it to be a fun and quick read that people could burn through quickly, AND I wanted to write characters people actually cared about. I don't think you have to do just one or the other — both are good in themselves, and if you can get both into the same story, so much the better.

The end of the book was written no more or less quickly than any other part, and since I didn't let Tor know it existed until it was done, nothing about the book, in a negative sense, is their fault. Nor is it necessarily indicative of any other book of mine — each book is what it is.

Possibly. There are a lot of names in my books which reference real-life people, famous and not, in part because it's fun, and in part because I'm lazy.

Already answered above (mostly).

The Android's Dream and Old Man's War universes are not related, at least not until I get very old and try to tie all my fictional universes together in an attempt to give my creative life some after the fact structure.

Interesting questions! And I left them unanswered for a reason, i.e., I think the readers' interpretations are going to be in many ways more interesting than any answer I could tell them. And also, if I do write a sequel/prequel/whatever, I like to keep my options open.

I never say never, but at the moment I have a number of other projects in line in front of any possible sequel/prequel/whatever in that universe.

Answered above!

Yes!

Not really. I wrote it on the premise of "what if these people found out their lives were not exactly their own?"

Heh. As we see from this thread itself, some people really like them, and some people... don't. I'm fine with both; as I said, when you do something different, you should expect a range of responses, including "WTF?"

Oh, I don't know. As a viewer, I'd prefer to let other people do the creative heavy lifting and them check it out to see if I like it or not. I often find I like things I didn't know I would like.

I think we have to be careful about saying what is "legitimate criticism" and what isn't, especially when people are expressing their opinion about how the book struck them. I think it's legitimate to say the characters felt like cardboard even IF the characters were meant to be cardboard-y, because what it ultimately…

ARE YOU SUGGESTING I MADE THINGS UP AS I WENT ALONG?!?

I prefer The Next Generation for TV (from "Yesterday's Enterprise" onward) and the Original Series cast movies. I am particularly fond of "Yesterday's Enterprise" for the series, and I think Star Trek VI is underrated in terms of the films.

I did go back in time and write books. My pen name was Robert Heinlein. I hope this clears up any confusion.

Speaking as a reader, I disagree EMPHATICALLY with the idea that it's usually easy to tell who is speaking by context, and one of the things that really chaps my ass as a reader is getting lost and having to go back and count lines to find out who is speaking what. So I don't do that to my readers — I always make it…