Q. The Tide Turners is such an unusual book. Where did you get the idea for it?

A. Well, the project that the main characters in the story become involved in is based on some thinking I did many years ago about the environment. At that time I came to the conclusion that human population growth was outstripping our efforts to deal with its effects, and that it would possibly be the cause of our demise, and that of many other species. Back then, the technology for what I was considering didn't exist -- but now it does. I tend to think we are living through the last days of our final chance to save the planet. If we don't act now in some way, and on a massive scale, then our legacy will be a world where life barely hangs on -- and a world without us in it. The evolutionary experiment of technical intelligence will have failed.

Q. What about your actual writing style, how deliberate and how natural is it? And the characters, where did they come from?

A. Mmm, difficult questions. I am quite pedantic as a writer, and I know I have a particular style -- certain aspects seem to have always been with me, and others I've had to work at developing -- something I'm continually doing. I won't say where the main characters in The Tide Turners came from -- that's my secret -- but I can say that once I'd created them and put them in the general framework, they were the ones who proceeded with the story -- particularly the dialogue. Quite strange really.

(From ABC Radio interview of Colin Macpherson by Michael Spooner, December 15, 1999)