It is a truism throughout the civilized galaxy that when you go to the police, your troubles really begin.

So I wrote what I hoped would be science fiction, I was not at all sure if what I wrote would be acceptable even. But I don't say that I consciously wrote with humour. Humour is a part of you that comes out.

The British audience was very important to me. I have always looked away from American to non-American audiences and so this was important.

I'm not so interested any more in how a great deal of science fiction goes. It goes into things like Star Wars and Star Trek which all go excellent in their own way.

I'm quite influenced in this by one of my heroes, Montaigne, who thought a man's real task was to render as honest an account of himself as he could.

I was never able to write seriously about heroes because I was very aware that I was not one and that in my background there was not this heroic thing.

I'm not too fond of the hard work and the constant battle with self-doubt that goes on when I write, but I figure that's part of the territory.