Tony Stewart

You get around people who see us away from the track, and it's a pretty big contrast. You're still competitive, and you still want to win everything, but I think in the car, we're focused and passionate all the time. We get outside the car, and we're a lot more relaxed and easygoing, enjoying things away from racing.

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.