One of the nice things about science fiction is that it lets us carry out thought experiments.

For me, the best thing about cyberpunk is that it taught me how to enjoy shopping malls, which used to terrify me. Now I just pretend that the whole thing is two miles below the moon’s surface, and that half the people’s right-brains have been eaten by roboticized steel rats. And suddenly it’s interesting again.

If we suppose that many natural phenomena are in effect computations, the study of computer science can tell us about the kinds of natural phenomena that can occur.

Science fiction writers put characters into a world with arbitrary rules and work out what happens.

But how does it feel to plug into a system that's say, a million times as smart as a person.

A little-known truth: Every aspect of the world is fundamentally unpredictable. Computer scientists have long since proved this.

Electronic distribution is more of a fall-back strategy for putting out a book that isn't deemed profitable enough to print. You hardly make any money publishing an electronic book.