I asked him if he had enjoyed the book and luckily he had, I signed it for him and he bought me a beer and then came along to a signing session too. What he didn't realise is that it was probably more of a thrill for me than it was for him, to see someone really reading something I had written. It was such a buzz, Normally you don't really get any feedback, you work on your own. I have fun working in all sorts of puzzles and things as well, like acrostics. That was hard to contrive.
Some people spot it.
Rankin still wonders just where his fiction fits in. Most of it is not pure SF, or pure fantasy. It is perhaps a mixture of both, plus weirdness, viewed with astigmatism. I don't really belong in the science fiction bookshelf. I get put there because there is nowhere else to put me.