Books Sometimes authors tell the truth about how they decided upon the idea for their new book: Richard Morgan in Slate Magazine:
It started out from an argument I was having with a Buddhist. The point of conflict was the karma system. He was arguing any suffering you undergo in this life is a direct result of something bad you did in a previous life, which sounds fair until you realise that you can’t actually remember any of your previous lives. Then, it suddenly starts to sound existentially pretty fucking unfair. After all, if you can’t remember a previous life then to all intents and purposes that life was lived by another person. And why should you be paying for someone else’s crimes?
Am I the only person who read the first sentence and imagined him screaming and shouting at the placid face of the Dali Lama?

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