Do any of your science fiction books give any background on Heaven from the Recluce Saga?

The short answer to the question is “no.” The question, however, illustrates a perception about writers, one which is true of some, perhaps many, and not at all true for me. By that, I mean that some authors develop a “future history” and a great number, if not all, of their work falls within that time-line. I don’t. With the exception of the “Ghost” books, my science fiction work all takes the present of our world and extrapolates how the future might turn out under differing economic, political, and environmental outcomes. Some of these “futures” are represented by single books, some by two or three or four, but they certainly don’t represent a straight-line future history. Likewise, every fantasy series is independent of the others, and of the science fiction, although some events in Recluce and in the Spellsong Cycle do have links to our present and a possible future… but I haven’t yet written those futures… and my never do so.

Are all your characters modeled after people you know?

With two exceptions across all of my books, my characters are generally more composites of characteristics I’ve observed in others, rather than character “transplants.” Lerris, for example,exhibits the boredom I observed in one of my own children at his age, and several of my characters are pilots [as I once was]. Anna, the soprano sorceress, is largely modeled on my wife, much to her chagrin, and Johan Eschbach is probably the character closest to me in personality, abilities, and habits — except he’s much better at matters than I was.