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" I'm a card-carrying nerd, a gamer, and sci-fi geek. "

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" For me, the best moments in storytelling are the ones where I feel I'm discovering something. "

" I've always been fascinated by mythology or, in modern parlance, by X-Men or vampires. "

" I learned to dive in Belize, which is sort of like learning to drive in an Aston Martin. The reefs and refuges are some of the most dramatic in the world. But the real reason I went was to dive the Blue Hole, a 400 ft. sinkhole near Ambergris Caye. Google it, and you'll see why. "

" My novels are never directly based on a true crime incident, but I want to get the details right. I want to know how homicide detectives think, what a SWAT team might do to prepare. "

" One of the things that I love about crime novels is that you can turn the volume all the way up. If I can make somebody blow their subway stop, I win. "

" I'm not at all upset to be considered a crime novelist. But for me, it's never really about the crime or the violence. I'm much more interested in exploring issues. "

" The notion of a writer sitting in a library doing research isn't what I want. The research I love doing isn't found in a book. It's what it feels like to rappel down the side of a building; to train with a SWAT team; to hold a human brain in your hands; or to dive for pirate treasure. Those are things I've done to research my stories. "

" As the Occupy Movement demonstrated, it's tough to change anything when you're talking about everything. "

" I write crime novels and thrillers - I'm a big fan of cops. You can never forget that they run towards what everyone else runs away from. "

" The best thing about writing speculative fiction is the opportunity to satirize the whole wide world. The America in 'A Better World' isn't ours, but it's pretty close, so I could lampoon everything from partisan politics to the cult of celebrity to our general disaffection. To me, all that is the point. "

" Nobody is accidentally in Alaska. The people who are in Alaska are there because they choose to be, so they've sort of got a real frontier ethic. The people are incredibly friendly, interesting, smart people - but they also stay out of each other's business. "

" I like really sharp flavors, and I like contrasts. Something sweet and sour at the same time is a big win. "

" My goal as a novelist is to create smart entertainment, books that keep bright people up too late, that make them want to read just one more chapter. Books that have ideas threaded in amidst the thrilling bits, ideas that I hope linger even after people close the book. "

" I like female characters that are strong in their own right and not because the author said so. "

" The first job of a storyteller is to make the reader feel the story, to get the reader to live in the skin of the character. "

" I don't know if this is the flat-out strangest, but I'll never forget handling a human brain. It had been sliced into sections for autopsy, each about an inch thick, and felt like pork tenderloin. I swear to god, my first thought was that if you were to dust it with chipotle and cinnamon and saute it in butter, it would probably be delicious. "

" As an author, it's a strange process to watch your novel turned into a movie. It's tremendously exciting but somewhat voyeuristic; after all, novelists are rarely involved in the process. "

" I'm a Hemingway fan, so in a manner of speaking, I've been fishing with him already. But man, would I love to board Pilar in Key West and head south until we have a day-long battle with a tarpon, haul that bad boy up, then celebrate by telling lies over rum on a Cuban terrace. "

" If you pick up a copy of 'A Better World,' you'll lose those last five pounds while saving a baby seal under a rainbow. I kid. It'll be ten pounds. "

" For me, one of the hallmarks of a really great book is that I'm seeing it in my head while I'm reading. "

" In 1791, the right to bear arms to defend against an over-reaching government wasn't theoretical. Today, it's hard to imagine physical weapons serving the same purpose. But it's easy to see how hacktivists might - especially if you broaden the opponents to include hate groups and rapacious multinationals. "

" When I write, I try not to cast in my head, because then I'm writing to a major movie star, and it picks up those ticks, and that's not what I want to do. "

" A decade in advertising exposed me to plenty of schemers and backstabbers. But honestly, advertising is wonderful training for fiction. Writing novels is much easier if you've ever tried to write a billboard. "

" When people ask me where I get my ideas, I lie. I tell them I draw inspiration from the news, the world, my dreams. Or I joke and say that I steal from other writers. I lie because I don't know where ideas come from, and I'm afraid if I look too hard, they'll stop coming. "