Years ago, my son asked me to write him a Star Trek story.

I was working on Civil War fiction and found it liberating not having to work around actual events or worry where railroad stations were in Nashville in 1862. For years, I spun fiction as a family game with my son and a cousin.

Finally, I decided I wanted my own universe, as complicated and practical as my life in insurance made me believe the future must be.

Having invented one, I filled it with characters I like to read about.