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We've come into the world of '1984,' but it turns out to be '1984'-Lite.

For much of the twentieth century, 1984 was a year that belonged to the future - a strange, gray future at that. Then it slid painlessly into the past, like any other year. Big Brother arrived and settled in, though not at all in the way George Orwell had imagined.

I would ask, 'Have you read '1984'? Have you read 'Brave New World'? If so, I'm sorry, but you read science fiction.'

George Orwell's '1984' frequently tops surveys of our greatest books: it's not a celebration of poetic language. It's decidedly anti-literary, a masterpiece of personal and political narrative sequence. And its subject matter is crucial, because what '1984' shows is that language can be a dirty trick.

I don't write historical novels but novels that wonder, 'And what if it happened in this way and not in this other one?'

I read '1984' at a precocious age, like 8, and when I did the math, I realized that Julia, Winston Smith's lover, was born the same year I was, 1957. I read that book over and over again with the 1960s as a backdrop: anti-war and anti-bomb protests and this general pervasive sense of doom.

I can't remember too much about the '80s, to be honest with you... I wish that weren't true, but it is.

The 1990's sure aren't like the 1980's.

I had a similar year back in 1984 when I felt like I couldn't lose.

Even if it happened in real life - and oftentimes, especially if it happened in real life - it might not work in fiction.