He has two answers to that. One is that the squirrel story at the heart of the first book, The Fire Within, is necessarily set in such a world, and so everything else had to be; the other is that he was initially very wary about creating something “other,” given his then rather poor track history of attempting to write science fiction stories. His confidence has grown considerably since (read Fire World, for instance!), but the scene was set (or rather, the scenes were set) beyond any substantial change long before that point. Perhaps there is a third reason — that he simply thoroughly enjoys writing family drama–type scenarios. It’s what he relishes most of all. Although there are many, many settings throughout the series, these can be largely separated into three distinct groupings. These are Earth (modern day and, paradoxically, in the last book in the series, in early times), Ki:mera, and Co:pern:ica. As Ki:mera, the home thought-world of the Fain, is never actually seen, it obviously cannot be described here.
