Mitch Lasky

My kids download 10 games. They play them all for two minutes. They throw away the eight they don't like. Then they play those last two obsessively for a month. That's alien to those of us who buy a $60 game and play it for 40 or 50 hours. The discovery mechanism is completely social, and I don't think you get that genie back in the bottle.

The distributor used to get 10, 12, 14 percent in most cases, but the App Store or Steam - they're taking 30 points. So clearly, they're viewing what they bring to the table in the digital environment to be more valuable than distribution.

After decades spent in rewrite rooms surrounded by other shouting writers, I discovered that I work best alone. I like being in charge of my time, working out the problems according to my own rhythms and being able to nap. That's a big one, the napping on demand!

The historical novelist has to consider what has actually happened, while the SF writer is dealing in possibilities, but they are both in the business of imagining a world unlike our own and yet connected to it.