Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one.

I admit it: above all things, I fear absurdity.

Home has become such a scattered, damaged, various concept in our present travails. There is so much to yearn for. There are so few rainbows any more.

Science fiction is always a vehicle for ideas. It's the form which allows either movies or books to be an exploration of how we should live.

To put it as simply as possible: I am not a Muslim.[...] I do not accept the charge of apostacy, because I have never in my adult life affirmed any belief, and what one has not affirmed one can not be said to have apostasized from. The Islam I know states clearly that 'there can be no coercion in matters of religion'. The many Muslims I respect would be horrified by the idea that they belong to their faith purely by virtue of birth, and that a person who freely chose not to be a Muslim could therefore be put to death.

Even when things are at their worst, there's a little voice in your head saying, 'Good story!'

A little bit of one story joins onto an idea from another, and hey presto, . . . not old tales but new ones. Nothing comes from nothing.