Balaji asked Jo Walton:

Hi, Are "Among Others" and the Sulien series set in the same universe? Seems like the fairies here are what Sulien refers to as Gods (maybe they've steadily lost their power?) Also - Absolutely love your books! Balaji

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)[Great question.

No, they're not. In Sulien's world, Britain is Tir Tanagiri and the Romans are Vincans, and if I'd been setting it in the same world I'd have stuck to that -- and then I couldn't have had Le Guin and Heinlein. The world of AO is supposed to be our world with magical additions most people don't notice for very good reasons. They are different worlds with different histories. If you read the "what has gone before" synopsis at the beginning of _The King's Name_ you'll get hints about the future of Sulien's world, and what happens with the gods and etc -- what does happen is a democritization of magic, so that everyone has that king-connection to the land if they want it. I wanted to write a book about this but it was too hard. Maybe one day.

But you're right to notice that there's a similarity and wonder -- and you're the first person who has.

People who have read AO often ask me -- it's a genuinely Frequently Asked Question -- whether I believe in magic. (I was asked this so often in Poland that I learned the Polish word for magic -- my three days worth of Polish: yes, no, good morning, good night, please, thank you, magic.) My answer is always no, I'm interested in how the metaphysics works, and in the real world magic only works inside your head. But when I define fantasy, I say that fantasy is about approaches to the numinous. The reason the magic sort of feels as if it might be the same, and uses the same kind of connections to place and the world, is because inside my head that's one of the ways I really think about things that are numinous. There's a bit in _The Philosopher Kings_ that's set on Delos which is going to feel the same to you, even though it's set in another really different universe. But it's me and the numinous. So while I don't believe in magic outside my head, inside my head I have a very strong sense of what is numinous, and when I'm describing how that feels, even to people like Mori who take it all totally for granted, there's a similarity to the way it comes out emotionally. (hide spoiler)]

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