Pete Gallego

There's no such thing as anybody who can't be beat; everybody can be beat. It's a question of how hard you're willing to work. It's a question of the environment, the surroundings. Frankly, there's a lot of issues with timing.

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.