If you have other things in your life-family, friends, good productive day work-these can interact with your writing and the sum will be all the richer.

With gritty action and realistic science, Peter Watts brings to life a dark and vivid world.

When I begin a book, I inevitably discover many things along the way, about the characters, their past histories and the political intrigues that surround them. This discovery process is vital, and I would not prejudice it by deciding too much in advance

In all of history, we have found just one cure for error—a partial antidote against making and repeating grand, foolish mistakes, a remedy against self-deception. That antidote is criticism.

Only people with full stomachs become environmentalists.

Where subtlety fails us we must simply make do with cream pies.

Change is the principal feature of our age and literature should explore how people deal with it. The best science fiction does that, head-on.