Pop science goes flying off in all kinds of fashionable directions, and it often drags a lot of SF writers with it. I've been led astray like that myself at times.

Australian SF book publishing has undergone a boom recently, and sometimes it's easier for new writers to sell a book to a local publisher first, which then makes a US edition more likely.

I was six years old when my parents told me that there was a small, dark jewel inside my skull, learning to be me.

No one grows up. That's one of the sickest lies they ever tell you. People change. People compromise. People get stranded in situations they don't want to be in… and they make the best of it. But don't try to tell me it's some kind of… glorious preordained ascent into emotional maturity. It's not.

It was almost noon when the plane touched down at the Triad airport on the outskirts of Greensboro. There was a hire car waiting for me; I waved my notepad at the dashboard to transmit my profile, then waited as the seating and controls rearranged themselves slightly, piezoelectric actuators humming. As I started to reverse out of the parking bay, the stereo began a soothing improvisation, flashing up a deadpan title: Music for Leaving Airports 11 June 2008.

If we spend all our time gazing at the wonders ahead without remembering where we're standing right now, we're going to trip and fall flat on our face, over and over again.

Screw every known human culture.