I have a kind of standard explanation why, which goes like this: Science fiction is one way of making sense out of a senseless world.

In most conventional novels, God is not allowed to be nuts. Nor are nuts allowed to be God.

I have a kind of standard explanation why, which goes like this: Science fiction is one way of making sense out of a senseless world.

R-4 got stuck on the First Law. "Can anyone really protect a human being from all harm whatever?" it thought. "No. It is inevitable that all humans must be injured, contract illnesses and ultimately die. The future can only be averted for humans who are already dead. Ergo..." It took a dozen cops to subdue R-4, after his blood orgy in a department store (83 dead, none injured).

People have laughed at all great inventors and discoverers.

Anything can happen in SF. And the fact that nothing ever does happen in SF is only due to the poverty of our imaginations, we who write it or edit it or read it. But SF can in principle deal with anything.

See, I have no journalism in my background, so I wasn't practised at research or writing non-fiction, nor at handling the truth in a journalistic way. Journalists know when to call a halt and write something, but I kept on looking for answers.