Author

I've always been attracted to Pertwee's portrayal of the Doctor as dashing man-of-science, charming, sceptical, and rational.

I couldn't think of anything more pointless than reading a piece of fiction written by a robot.

Science fiction can be very relevant, could be good literature.

When you're writing stuff that's already clotted with neologisms and trying to get across fairly abstruse concepts, you're already putting a heavy burden on the reader.

One of the dangers of science fiction, particularly bad science fiction, is that you have these scenes where the characters turn to a blackboard and start explaining how this faster-than-light drive works, or something like that. We never really have those conversations in real life. That's not part of the way we interact as human beings.

Like everyone else, I read newspapers and 'New Scientist' and try to put my finger on the trends which we can just see emerging now that are accelerating and might take off.

For me, the distant future and far-off galaxies is where it's at. That's where my imagination can really come out to play.

One of the big breakthroughs I had as a writer was when I stopped agonising over every word.

Daleks scared the hell out of me, to the point where I wouldn't go round to another boy's house because he had Dalek wallpaper in his bedroom.

Speaking for myself, I really struggle to pinpoint whether I became a scientist because I like science fiction, or did I gravitate to science fiction because I identified strongly with scientists.

I've always loved far future SF, so it was more or less a given that I would one day want to write in that form.

I'm a genre writer - I chose to be one, I ended up one, I still am one, and I'm not writing transgressive, genre-blurring fiction. I write 'core SF' - it may occasionally incorporate horror or noir tropes, but it's not pretending to be anything other than what it is.

Sitting here at the beginning of the 21st century, we're only 200 years into the industrial revolution. We don't have an enormous dataset to draw on, so whatever shaped curve we're on, we're only at the beginning of it.

I was never strong at maths, but I eventually got onto a university physics/astronomy course, and that led on to my Ph.D. and eventual employment.

I always say that keeping abreast of science should never be seen as a chore. It should be something you do naturally. I don't sit there reading 'New Scientist,' putting post-it notes next to ideas.

No idea should be discarded completely, but - as one might imagine - it does take a degree of ingenuity to find a new spin on something as hackneyed as the 'Adam and Eve' story. But if you think you've got the chops for it, there's no reason not to try.

I think the danger with using the term 'trilogy' is that it sets up particular expectations in the reader's mind.

I don't know why, but American sci-fi writers seem to focus on the near-future, which has given us Brits a clear run at the most fascinating.

In some respects, big ideas can be a bit too big for a short story - especially if you've only got a couple of thousand words to play with, and you need room for other stuff, like character, description.

I'm just happy to have some American readers - enough that it's a viable proposition for my books to appear there.