Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the Universe to make sense!

Many people have tried to define science fiction. I like to call it the literature of exploration and change. While other genres obsess upon so-called eternal verities, SF deals with the possibility that our children may have different problems. They may, indeed, be different than we have been.

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.

In the end, the work of diplomats continues even while others fight. So, it's not necessarily true that everyone needs to march.

If there are still honest-smart men and women within those old and noble traditions, they should think carefully, observe and diagnose the illness. They should face the contradiction. Discuss the conflation. And then do as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates and many others have done. Choose the miracle of creative competition over an idolatry of cash. They should stand up.

The fundamental premise of sci-fi is not spaceships and lasers - it's that children can learn from the mistakes of their parents.

I would normally never set out to write a trilogy.