SlowRain asked Olen Steinhauer:

Do you find it more challenging to write "historical" novels set in a fictional country or contemporary novels set in the real world? Why?

Olen Steinhauer I think the historical ones are easier for a couple reasons. First, since I'm inventing the country I have the freedom to lay out the details as I see fit. For example, if my character turns left on a street, I don't have to spend time scouring old maps to find out if that's possible, or if it's a one-way street. Because there's always someone out there who knows this fact, and will call you on it.

More importantly, though, hindsight is 20/20. I can write about Cold War politics with not only historical perspective, but also with the knowledge of things that contemporary writers wouldn't have been aware of. The opening of the Stasi files, for example, has made the writing about the East German secret police immeasurably easier to accomplish.

In fact, it was this perceived ease in writing historical novels that convinced me to move to contemporary novels. Stuck in my fictional Cold War, I would look at the news and find myself at a loss to explain the world around me. I feared that, after five books, I was hiding out in a simpler time in order to avoid contemporary politics. So I cut the tether and got to work as best I could. I stumbled now and then, as we all do, but it seems to be working.

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