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This sequel to How Like a God, was published by Tor Books in May 2000.
In the backward and abysm of time, before ever How Like a God was written, it was going to end about where Doors of Death and Life ends now. The writing of HLAG changed the shape of the idea tremendously, and went down many roads that weren't on the original map, so that a large chunk of the original story fell out of the book. So I had to write DOORS to get all the other things in – returning Rob to a changed but normal life, the final struggle over power, resolving Rob's problems with his wife, finishing off Gilgamesh properly. I like all the ends to be tied off and nicely woven in. This excerpt is set in the year 2002, when Edwin has returned from the Moon colony and gotten into trouble, so that Rob steps in.
When I began to write this book I faced the difficulty of everyone who writes a near-future novel – that real life is not going to conform to the book. I needed to get Edwin to the Moon in a relatively short time frame, and I couldn’t wait for NASA to get themselves into gear. Since there’s nothing I can do about NASA’s slowness in building the Space Station, or the lugubrious tardiness of founding the Moon colony, I realized that all the books would become, to a greater or lesser extent, alternate history.
But if this is so, there’s no point in being shy about it. Roger MacBride Allen has been pestering me for years about the one hint in HOW LIKE A GOD. So I organized the future some more for my own purposes. The deviations from our own timeline continue in DOORS, beginning with Dan Quayle’s victory in the ‘96 Presidential election.
| ©1998-2002 Brenda and Larry Clough | Last modified 15 February 2004 |
