The problem and privilege we all have is being alive in this century and able to read this language. It makes any list meaningless except the list of an illiterate.

Whatever I'm reading at the moment seems to influence whatever I'm writing.

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).

I found some time ago that I have to be careful, while working on a novel, what I read.

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.

Today's robots are very primitive, capable of understanding only a few simple instructions such as 'go left', 'go right', and 'build car'.

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.