Don't mistake a good setup for a satisfying conclusion - many beginning writers end their stories when the real story is just ready to begin.

This means I must pay close attention to the writing, but equally so to the scientific background - which sometimes means doing fairly involved calculations.

What SF can do better than anything else is show us the range of our possible futures, and what we can do to realize the good ones and avoid the nasty ones.

There may be something to the suggestion about the pace of technological change intimidating writers, though - it's been awfully hard to keep ahead of real developments.

intricately and intriguingly woven, lots of fun, and extremely thought provoking.

Don't mistake a good setup for a satisfying conclusion - many beginning writers end their stories when the real story is just ready to begin.

It's most presumptuous to believe we already know all the answers and will never get any more big surprises.