I wanted to write books that I would want to read: about people I'd like to spend time with, doing the things I would like to do. The systems engineer who keeps the ship safe and operational is a problem-solver with an active job. Trevathan has a network of friends who also have the careers I find fascinating: primatologist, physician, coroner, and political activist. The narrator is most interested in the gay/lesbian crew of the colony ship, who share some strong opinions about animal rights and human liberties. When they are faced with repressive constraints of martial law, the characters broaden their network and push back. This is sheer projection on my part. The Nazis have always scared me, and an unbridled CIA, FBI and Homeland Security give me the same viseral unease.

The gorillas and the bonobos fascinate me. I feel such kinship. To tell you where that started goes back to being about four when my mother handed me a penny for the monkey of a organ grinder. For everyone else, he tipped his hat; he looked up at me and climbed in my arms. If I had my career to do over again, I'd be in Africa doing my best to save the bonobos and provide them freedom within a preserve. In my world of 2088, the chimps and the bonobos are extinct, and the gorillas are our last remaining cousins. My book is the fiction deriving out of the work of numerous primatologists who have made the similarity in brains fascinatingly clear.