For all its beauty, honesty, and effectiveness at improving the human condition, science demands a terrible price - that we accept what experiments tell us about the universe, whether we like it or not. It's about consensus and teamwork and respectful critical argument, working with, and through, natural law. It requires that we utter, frequently, those hateful words - 'I might be wrong.'

It is a paradox of Life that all species breed past mere replacement. Any paradise of plenty soon fills to become paradise no more.

I would normally never set out to write a trilogy.

But it is a delightful challenge to try to depict interesting aliens.

It's how creativity works. Especially in humans. For every good idea, ten thousand idiotic ones must first be posed, sifted, tried out, and discarded. A mind that's afraid to toy with the ridiculous will never come up with the brilliantly original.

Everything isn't subjective. Reality also matters. Truth matters. It is still a word with meaning.

Reciprocal accountability, or criticism [is] the only known antidote to error.