I absolutely don't think a sentient artificial intelligence is going to wage war against the human species.

Right now, I think robots are where it's at. And yes, I'm biased. Robots and space, because with home rocket kits and Lego Mindstorm sets, people can get involved. I was raised on Transformers and GoBots, so I can't imagine what kids who are building real robots are dreaming about.

A robot-arm in a factory doesn't decide minute by minute whether to rivet or revolt - it just does the job is has literally been trained to do. It's if and when we build a conscious robot that we may have to worry.

I wrote six nonfiction books before getting into narrative fiction with 'Robopocalypse,' including 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising.' My goal all along was to start writing fiction, and I guess one day I'd just had enough.

Growing up in the greater Toronto area, I was a happy kid. I was my mother's first child, surrounded by admiring godparents and cousins.

I moved to Hawaii when I was fourteen. And I was there for a year and then I was just sort of on and off after that, just because I had friends and family there.

There's so much emphasis on the economic might of China, of Southeast Asia, Asian 'Super Tigers' and things like that. But nobody was really looking from the perspective of a family story, of these individuals.

I grew up with an Italian family in an era when a woman's path was laid out for her: You got married and had children. Simple, right? Then I got to a point around the age of 30 when I had three little children and was a single mom, and I realized life was not so simple.