I feel fantastically geeky. [But] I'm not one of those people who's enormously proud of being a geek, but nor am I particularly ashamed of it.

I'm a science fiction and fantasy geek.

For every action, there's an infinity of outcomes. Countless trillions are possible, many milliards are likely, millions might be considered probable, several occur as possibilities to us as observers - and one comes true.

The reason that I like SF and fantasy and horror is that to me it's the pulp wing of surrealism. That's the aesthetic of undermining and creative alienation that I really go for.

My dad hates umbrellas, said Deeba, swinging her own. When it rains he always says the same thing. 'I do not believe the presence of moisture in the air is sufficient reason to overturn society's usual sensible taboo against wielding spiked clubs at eye level.

Everything has changed. I cannot be used anymore. Those days are over. I know too much. What I do now, I do for me.

Part of the appeal of the fantastic is taking ridiculous ideas very seriously and pretending they're not absurd.