Do you ever get annoyed that people just think of you as the tribble man?

No. You cannot believe how many doors the tribbles have opened for me. I've gotten into the Houston Space Centre and NASA and JPL (the Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and just every studio I can get into [by saying], "I'm the guy who wrote the tribbles", "Oh, come on in!" So I don't mind, it's a great door-opener and I've dined out on it for 35 years.

What I wish is that people would look beyond the tribbles and see I've written some other books that I really would like people to notice. There's The Man Who Folded Himself, there's The Martian Child, which is about my son and the adoption. There's The War Against The Chtorr, which is my magnum opus, my great epic story. So there's so much other stuff I've done.

Yes, I'd like people to read those books but I don't mind it, it's fun, and I live in hope that somebody will tell me a tribble joke I haven't already heard.

Oh, tell us a tribble joke.

A tribble joke, okay. Well, the tribble limerick I wrote is:

Since I first wrote that damn script for Gene
and the electrical picture machine
Tribbles have chased their creator
From here to Decatur
Nobody knows of the tribbles I've seen.

[Decatur is a city in Georgia, USA]