It always starts with an idea. I was intrigued by the way Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai film inspired the Magnificent Seven westerns. What if I tried a science-fiction version? That became Seven Against Earth.  I was fond of Film Noir. Where could the Noir tropes work in space? Clearly, in Ganymede City, deep in the ice mantle of Ganymede, with no sunlight, where it is always night, the mores are flexible, and even the streets are wet. That became Down and Out on Callisto and Ganymede, and Loris slipped easily into the role of hard-bitten detective. If Gerard O’Neill’s space colonies became real, with virtually free solar-sail shipping, unlimited solar power, and efficient gravity-free construction, why would they need Earth, except for cheap labor. And if serious global warming took place, would not the American Midwest become like the Sahara, and the Appalachian Mountains become like the Congo?