The City of Splendors: The Cities
Amazon.com Exclusive ContentAmazon.com's Significant SevenEd Greenwood kindly agreed to take the life quiz we like to give to all our authors: the Amazon.com Significant Seven.Q:What book has had the most significant impact on your life?A:I can't possibly pick just one.The Lord of the Ringsis one of them, but there have beensomany. I have 80,000 of them at home right now.Q:You are stranded on a desert island with only one book, one CD, and one DVD--what are they?A:The book: anyDiscworldomnibus (Terry Pratchett), because I'm greedy. I think I'll ask him if I can pick my own selection, the next time his publishers are slapping several titles together. If it really must be just a single book:A Song for Arbonneby Guy Gavriel Kay.The CD: Cheating time again.Your Hundred Best Tunes(London label, two four-CD sets, but a dearly loved and now-vanished store, the Madrigal, once sold them taped together, in a brick of glorious music). Force me to pick just one? I can't.Tubular Bells?Selling England by the Pound?Eldorado? No, I just can't.The DVD: Jackson's completeLord of the Ringsset. If I really can only pick a single disc:The Man Who Would Be King(Connery, Caine, and Plummer). BeatsThe Princess Brideby a nose, some days but not others.Q:What is the worst lie you've ever told?A:Not telling a friend that the love of her life had just been killed, because I didn't think she should learn that from me, in that place, at that time. It hurt to do it, and I still think it was the right thing to do, but itstillhurts.Q:Describe the perfect writing environment.A:A Secret Place: a quiet spot where I can go off by myself to think. For me, a forest glade. That just happens to have electricity running up a handy stump, right beside a smooth stump angled to sit upon. Not just for my computer, but for kettles so I can brew endless mugs of green tea and hot chocolate.Q:If you could write your own epitaph, what would it say?A:Here lies Ed, who tried to make people happy. Please sit down and have an easy moment. I now have plenty to share.Q:Who is the one person living or dead that you would like to have dinner with?A:Any of my grandfathers ("Any?" long story), because I was too young to be able to pick their brains in a candid, man-to-man fashion ere they died. Not just because I'd love to know the truth, or at least their side, of various family tales, events, and disputes. Not just because I desperately want to know more of their characters, and spend more time with them. It's also because they were gushing, articulate fonts of knowledge about times now gone, the daily customs and attitudes and aspirations of "then." The saying: "There were MEN in those days" comes to mind. And no, I'm not belittling the women of the family. Theydidtalk to me, at eloquent length, before passing away. They knew the importance of sharing and passing lore on.Q:If you could have one superpower, what would it be?A:The power to read people's minds, at very close range and only when I tried to. Not to read bank account numbers or anything of the sort, but to know their true feelings, so as not to offend and so I can best make them happy. Spreading happiness has to be the most heroic thing ordinary folk can daily do.