What novel have you personally enjoyed the most writing?
Once I apparently answered this question, ‘Northworld.’ I can’t imagine why I did that, because I was so stressed while writing Northworld that I was having back spasms that made it difficult for me to walk some days. I’m very proud of the book and the series, but they’re enormously complex works–note the way words are echoed within and among the interwoven plot strands, for example–and the first one darned near crippled me.
Now I’d say Lord of the Isles. I’ve always loved fantasy, but because I’d been successful with military SF I wasn’t able to do as much as I’d have liked to. Getting the chance to write Lord of the Isles was a wonderful change of pace. You can take the series as homage to Tolkien and to Robert E Howard both if you like; I do.